WSDB 290A:
Library Tips for your Assignments
Course Reserves can help you obtain required material for your courses, online or in person at the library.
- Here is a SHORTCUT
Annotated Bibliography
An annotated bibliography is required as part of your first assignment. Though your professor's instructions should always come first, for general guidelines and examples, see the library help guide:
For help formatting bibliography references and the in-text citations, use a citation style guide.
Here are two examples of citation guides for popular styles, APA and MLA:
- APA Style Guide - guidelines and examples prepared by Concordia Libraries
- MLA Citation Style - guidelines and examples prepared by Concordia Libraries
- see also many more style guides on our Citation & Style Guides page
RefWorks can also help you keep track of your references and automate the formatting of bibliographies.
- RefWorks Import-Export Instructions tell you how to get citations from any library database into your RefWorks account
- the Libraries offer RefWorks Workshops at different times in the term.
Find Books: Use Discovery or CLUES
Books can provide more in-depth information than articles, with more history and context.
You can use our DISCOVERY SEARCH box to find books but DON'T STOP there!
Also:
- Use CLUES to find books at Concordia Library.
- Explore our ebooks by publisher. Try especially Oxford, Palgrave and Project MUSE for instance.
- See Simone's Library & Book List to find books at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.
- Try Worldcat to search libraries worldwide, and Other Library Catalogues to locate books at McGill or other Montreal libraries.
- Use Google Books to search inside the pages of books, then use a CLUES Title Search to find out if we own the book you want. If we don't own the book use Interlibrary Loans or other library services
- See Related Library Services to find out how to obtain material from other libraries.
**TIP/WARNING:
Though books (or book chapters/essays) can prove to be useful sources for your research paper, it will take more judgment and evaluation on your part to determine if they qualify as appropriate quality sources. See Evaluating Sources for some general guidelines.
You can use our DISCOVERY SEARCH box to find articles in peer-reviewed journals but DON'T STOP there! It is great, but may include too many sources that are not RELEVANT enough for your research.
Also search any of these article databases to identify material related to your research topic:
- America History & Life (Canada & U.S)
- Historical Abstracts (outside of North America)
- Academic Search Complete
- Gender Studies Database
- LGBT Life with Full Text
- SocINDEX
TIP: you can search in all four of these databases together by selecting "Choose Databases"
- JSTOR (includes many journals covering historical topics)
- Google Scholar
TIP: click on the "Cited By" link underneath the citations you find to get more recent sources
- With Canadian focus or containing Canadian material:
- CBCA Complete
- CPI-Q - Canadian Periodical Index
- Erudit [French language sources]
- Depending on the topic you have chosen, additional databases in Women's Studies and even other subject areas may also be useful for you.
TIPS:
- For Quick Tips on how to enter search terms in most of these databases, see this one-page CHEAT SHEET.
- Click on the Scholarly/Peer-reviewed journals tab or checkbox in most of the databases above to limit your search to accepted sources. See also Evaluating Sources.
- You can sort your results by Relevance or by Most Recent Date
- You can also sometimes find relevant historical material by adding the search terms: history OR 20th to your search.
- Use the Findit@Concordia button within the databases to try and access the text of the articles. See also Help ACCESSING the texts.
Try these quality online reference sources:
- Literature Resource Centre
- Oxford Reference Online
- Gale Virtual Reference Library
- Feminism in literature: a Gale critical companion.
**To see a list of 20th Century authors:- use the Table of Contents and then choose a Volume covering the 20th Century
- TIPS:
- When using the 3 sources listed above, don't just look at the list of search results. Explore the tabs and sidebar options as well.
- All of the other resources listed above for finding BOOKS and ARTICLES can also be useful for either identifying a feminist author or finding out more about the one of your choice.
- If you use web sites, be sure to carefully evaluate their quality. See Help Evaluating Sources below.
IS IT SCHOLARLY/ACADEMIC/PEER-REVIEWED?
Your professor's instructions should always be the first criteria in determining what qualifies as an appropriate source. If you feel you need additional guidance in this area, however, you might find some relevant tips in the guides below.
- Scholarly Journals (also called academic, peer-reviewed or refereed)
- A Concordia Libraries guide about peer-reviewed articles
The following library guides might provide some help in evaluatiing these kinds of sources:
- Evaluating Web Resources (from Dalhousie University Library)
You can always get help with this from one of our ASK A LIBRARIAN services.
To find out ON YOUR OWN if you can access the text of any source, you must first determine whether it is a BOOK, BOOK CHAPTER or JOURNAL ARTICLE.
Is it a book, book chapter or journal article??
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To access books & book chapters:
- Just use the Title Search Option in CLUES to look for the name of the BOOK (not the book chapter).
- You can also use the Author Search Option in CLUES to look for the LAST name of the AUTHOR or EDITOR of the book (not of the book chapter).
To access journal articles:
First try typing all or part of the reference into our Discovery Search box -- it may be as easy as that!
If that doesn't work, enter the name of the JOURNAL (not the title of the article) using:
- The Journal Title Search Option in CLUES
- Or the E-journals search box (for ONLINE journals only)
...and then select the year, volume and issue that you need as indicated in your citation.
**POSSIBLE SHORTCUTS:
- if you have the DOI of the article, or a full citation with all of the year/volume/issue information, try using our quick Article Citation Finder or entering it into our Discovery Search box
- if you are using Google Scholar to search for articles, first install the VPN for ongoing easy access to the fulltext.
For journals or journal issues that are NOT available online, you can siumply fill out an Article Delivery Form.
Not sure what it is?
If the citation you have is unclear or incomplete, and you still can't tell whether it is a journal, book, or book chapter:
- Try using Google, Google Scholar or Google Books to find out more and get a complete citation or reference.
- You can then look up the citation via the methods above for BOOKS & BOOK CHAPTERS or JOURNAL ARTICLES.
- Article Delivery Service - Free email service for journal articles or books chapters only available in print or in microform at Concordia.
- Interlibrary Loans (COLOMBO) - fill out an online form to receive books and articles NOT AVAILABLE at Concordia.
- BCI card (formerly CREPUQ) - allows you to directly borrow books at McGill and elsewhere
- Handy if you often use Google or Google Scholar: Concordia's Virtual Private Network (VPN) allows you to access resources on the web as if you were connecting from within the library, allowing for much easier access to the fulltext of resources.
On this page...
Bibliography & Citations - Format:
Finding Sources for your Assignments
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