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Mary Church Terrell Main Library
148 West College Street
Oberlin, OH 44074
Welcome to the RELG 401 Research Guide
This guide is designed to support student research in RELG 401: Capstone Research Methods by highlighting key resources, databases, and strategies in the discipline.
Key Resources in Religion
The following are the best starting points for Religion-related research databases. For a full list of databases at Oberlin, check out our Databases A-Z list.
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ATLA Religion Database This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. Also covers antiquities and archaeology, Bible, church history, ecumenism, ethics, missions, pastoral ministry, philosophy, religions and religious studies, theology. Dates of Coverage: 1949-to date
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ATLASerials, Religion Collection This link opens in a new window
Full text from more than 100 journals selected by leading religion scholars in the United States.
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Index to Jewish Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Indexes English-language articles, book reviews, and feature stories in more than 230 journals devoted to Jewish affairs. Covers Jewish and Middle Eastern culture, literature, history, politics, religion, and other areas of study. Dates of Coverage: 1988 to date
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RAMBI: The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies This link opens in a new windowIncludes scholarly articles in all disciplines from journals and collections of articles in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and many European languages. Covers the various fields of Jewish studies and the study of the Southern Levant (roughly Israel, Palestinian territories, Jordan, and parts of Lebanon). Dates of Coverage: 1966 to date
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Religion and Philosophy Collection This link opens in a new window
Provides full text from more than 290 journals; covers world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy.
Search Strategy
Here is a good, basic formula for getting started with your research:
- Begin by narrowing down your topic and developing an initial research question.
- Use the keyword brainstorming worksheet to help you tweak your research question, identify keywords and related terms, and keep track of what you find.
- Use Search.Libraries to find books and reference sources. These sources will:
- provide BACKGROUND and CONTEXT
- REVIEW and SUMMARIZE earlier work
- help you FOCUS your topic and
- provide CITATIONS to important books, journal articles, conference papers, interviews, etc.
- Next, search research databases to find articles. The library has hundreds of databases; those listed on this guide are good places to begin.
- You may also wish to use Google Scholar to search the Internet. This is a great tool for doing cited reference searches.
