Step One - Plan your paper: Research Paper Navigator

Step Two - Use RefWorks to organize and format your citations: more info

Step Three - Research

LIBRARY RESEARCH BASICS

Finding Books in the Library Catalog
On the Tisch Library homepage select Library Catalog.

• If you want to find information about someone (i.e. literary criticism of an author, biographical information), try a Subject search.
• If you are searching for information on topics, try a Keyword search.
• Use the connectors AND, OR, or NOT to join more than one topic/keyword.

Note: In the Library Catalog, two asterisks ** are needed for truncation, whereas in many databases only one asterisk * is needed--but ALWAYS CHECK THE HELP SCREEN IN EVERY DATABASE to learn how to do the best (and fastest) searches!

Finding Articles in the Library Databases
To search for articles using the library databases, go to the Tisch Library Website and select Databases and Articles under Searching. Type in the name of the database in the search box or use the A-Z list to locate it. This is NOT the place to enter your specific search; this page is for finding databases only.

Some possible places to look:

INDICES

Expanded Academic ASAP and Academic OneFile (these have some overlap; search both at once by entering one of them, clicking on Change Databases, and selecting the box next to both titles)
Academic OneFile has over 8,000 peer-reviewed journals, the majority in full-text, from the world's leading journals and reference sources. Extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects. Full text articles are available in both PDF and HTML. Includes full-text coverage of the New York Times back to 1995. Updated daily.

ATLA Religion Database
The American Theological Association's Religion Database covers journals, multi-author books, and book reviews in Biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religious perspectives on social issues.

Film Literature Index (1976-2001 only; for dates before and after, use the print volumes in the Tisch REFERENCE Indexes: (HUM) Z5784.M9 F45)
The only comprehensive index to the periodical literature of film, television, and video from academic, professional, and literary publications, journals of opinion, and popular news sources.

Film and Television Literature Index
Film & Television Literature Index is a bibliographic database that provides indexing and abstracts for more than 300 publications, and selected coverage of 300 more.

LexisNexis
To find reviews: Directly under the SEARCH tab, select "News" and enter your search, then limit using the "Select Sources" drop-down menu by changing it to Book, movie, music, play and video reviews. Be sure also to change the "Specify Date" to All available dates (unless you would like to narrow your search).

SPECIFIC JOURNALS

Journal of Religion and Film (You can also search this journal's holdings using the ATLA Religion Database)

Use this index: International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) to search the contents of the following journals, among others (it indexes 60 journals on film):

• Film and History – FULL TEXT ACCESS – For online full text from 2004 to now, use Project MUSE. For issues before 2004, use ILLiad to request the article.
• Film Quarterly – FULL TEXT ACCESS – For online full text from 1958 through 2004, use JSTOR. For online full text from 2004 to now, use the publisher's site.
• Cinema Journal – FULL TEXT ACCESS – For online full text from 1966 through 2003, use JSTOR. For online full text from 1999 to now, use Project MUSE.

Internet Movie Database Want to browse for possible movies to work on? Do a "keywords" search for "religion" to get a list of subject results to browse through, such as religious cult, religious fanatic, religious intolerance, etc.

Finding Materials at Other Libraries

Books

• If you want to search for books on your topic beyond what's available at the Tufts University Libraries use WorldCat. You can access this database on the Databases & Articles page.
• If you want to borrow a book that is not available at Tufts University Libraries, follow these steps:

1. Search the Boston Library Consortium Virtual Catalog by clicking on its link along the top menu of the Library Catalog. This catalog contains the book holdings at most of the BLC libraries. Users can directly request books through the catalog and pick up the books at Tisch Library. You can also search the holdings of each individual BLC library.
2. If the book is not available through the BLC Virtual Catalog, Submit an online request through the document delivery service - ILLIAD. Users are notified when the material arrives at Tisch. You can sign up for an ILLiad account by clicking on First Time Users at the ILLiad home page.

Articles

• Articles not available in full-text through our libraries' databases and print collections can be requested through ILLiad. You can sign up for an ILLiad account by clicking on First Time Users at the ILLiad home page.
• You can also use ILLiad directly within the databases by clicking on the button if you see it in the record.

Citing your Sources

• For guidelines on using the MLA Bibliographic Citation Formats, see this page (or get the PDF here)
• For guidelines on using the Chicago Bibliographic Citation Formats, see this page (or get the PDF here)
• Need more detail on citing with either of these or others? come to the Reference Desk and ask to use the Manual of Style volume for the appropriate format.
• RefWorks can save you time in creating your bibliographies, and will help you organize your citations. Find out more here and sign in here.

Is this journal scholarly/peer-reviewed/refereed?

Search for the journal by Title in Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory and look at the Document Type field in its record.

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