Revolution (Laffey)

Research Guide for History seminar.

Finding Journal Articles

The use of articles is required for this project, and your teacher expects that you will use scholarly journals as well as newspaper or news magazine sources.

Links to several databases are listed. Many may help you access these periodicals and more.

Quick search boxes to these and other databases are also displayed on the right side of this page.

Finding the journal you're looking for

JStor  provides access to a variety of scholarly journals as well as pamphlets. 

If you find a particular journal is relevant to your topic you can USE BOOLEAN SEARCHING to look for your topic within that journal. Just follow these steps:

  1. Put your topic word or phrase in parentheses ex: (Egypt)
  2. Add the BOOLEAN OPERATOR "AND"
  3. Type "pt:(xxx)" where xxx is the Journal you'd like to search. ex: pt:(world policy journal)
  4. The phrase in the search box would then look like this:

   (topic) AND pt:(Journal name)  or    
(Egypt) AND pt:(world policy journal)

With EBSCO databases, like Academic Search Elite, you can limit search results by publication title which can help narrow your search.

Here are a few journals that might be worth investigating.

  • British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
  • Europe-Asia Studies (formerly Soviet Studies)
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Foreign Policy
  • International Affairs
  • World Policy Journal

Remember, you should NOT PURCHASE any articles, if you cannot access something, please contact Ms. Covintree and we will work to find you access.

Searching for "Revolution" and "Revolutionary" at the same time in EBSCO

Like many search systems, EBSCO has ways to search for items even when there are unknown characters, multiple spellings, or various endings to a word. We call these:

Wildcard and Truncation Symbols

Wildcards are used when a variety of letters could be in place within a word. And it uses two different symbols, the question mark (?) and the hashtag (#).

? wildcard = unknown character   
Example: ne?t finds results containing neat, nest, or next 

# wildcard = alternate spelling may contain an extra character   
Example: colo#r finds results containing color or colour

Truncation is a shortening of a search term and then added an asterisk (*) in order to get results that include various endings of that word

Example: ocean* finds results with the words ocean, oceanic, or oceans

You can also use * to substitute a word within a phrase.
Example: day * died will return results that include the exact phrase day democracy died as well as day JFK died, et cetera. 

NOTE: These symbols cannot be used at the beginning of a search and don't include the ? for titles actually ending with a question mark because alternate results will come instead. 

Wildcard & Truncation symbols are common shortcuts, but be aware that each symbol does not always work the same way across search sites.

Extra Help!

Some databases can be difficult to navigate. The following links lead to tutorials and helpful instructions related to the specific database.

What is a scholarly article?

Search the EBSCO Databases

Search databases
Limit Your Results
Topic for debate?

Search SIRS Researcher

SIRs Researcher provides background and current analysis on over 300 current events and issues. The site includes Topic Overview pages for certain topics as well as collections of articles from reputable sources. 

NOTE: Unless you know your specific subject, choosing the "Keyword" option below the search box will provide broader results.

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Search History Study Center

ENTER HSC

History Study Center from ProQuest is a collection of primary and secondary sources on global history from ancient times to the present day. 

Search History Reference Center

Research databases
Limit Your Results

Suggested magazines and newspapers

Don't forget to take a look at our PRINT collection of PERIODICALS. While not scholarly, they may help put a situation into perspective and provide useful statistics. Specifically: 

Search like a scholar

Google Scholar Search