Where to Find Background Sources
The following databases may be particularly useful for finding background sources. For a full list of databases, check out our Databases A-Z. Try filtering by Types for Background, or by Subject for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.
-
Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window
Authoritative guide to reliable peer-reviewed resources and scholarship in African Studies, Buddhism, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies, Linguistics, Medieval Studies, Political Science, and Renaissance and Reformation. Bibliographies are selectively curated and annotated by expert academics and offer high-level overviews that provide non-experts with a point of entry into unfamiliar areas of study.
-
Oxford Research Encyclopedias This link opens in a new window
Designed to be an authoritative resource of reference content in a wide array of academic fields, including the humanities, social sciences, and science.
-
Very Short Introductions This link opens in a new window
Provides concise introductions to a diverse range of subjects, written by experts in the field who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make challenging topics highly readable. Subject categories include: Arts and Humanities, Law, Medicine and Health, Science and Mathematics, and Social Sciences.
-
Intersectional Feminist Research Methodologies
by
ISBN: 9781032507705Publication Date: 2024-10-21"[A] multi-disciplinary volume in which emerging and established scholars present new feminist research methods and re-evaluates existing approaches", this volume "will be of value to both undergraduate and graduate students conducting research, as well as active feminist researchers". -
Feminist Methodologies: Experiments, Collaborations and Reflections
by
ISBN: 9783030826536Publication Date: 2022-02-04"This open access book gives insights into feminist methodologies in theory and practice. […] This book will be a valuable resource and asset to early career researchers and interdisciplinary feminist students who can learn more about the doing of feminist research from realistic, accessible, and practical methodological tools and knowledge." -
Researching with Care
by
ISBN: 9781447359791Publication Date: 2022-10-24"This text demonstrates how an ethics of care can help researchers work through challenges and solve complex issues. Keeping social justice at the heart of research, the book shows how an ethics of care can provide a systematic approach supporting good judgements about research practices from inspection to impact."
The B in BEAM: What is a Background Source?
In his paper introducing the BEAM model of source description, Jospeh Bizup explains:
I use the terms background and background source to refer to materials whose claims a writer accepts as fact, whether these "facts" are taken as general information or deployed as evidence to support the writer's own assertions. Writers regard their background sources as authoritative and expect their readers to do the same. Because writers sometimes treat information gleaned from their background sources as "common knowledge," they may sometimes leave these sources uncited.
(Bizup 2008, 75)
Bizup, Joseph. “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing.” Rhetoric Review 27, no. 1 (2008): 72–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20176824.
To learn more about BEAM and other source evaluation models and techniques, refer to the following research guide: