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Gender Studies 187 (Winter 2017, E. Marchant)

Gender, Race, and Class in Latin American Literature and Film

Strategies and Tips for Conducting Research

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  • Successful research is often a combination of systematic approaches and, when appropriate, serendipity.
  • Topic Identification and Description: Identify a topic of interest and describe it as narrowly/focused as possible. Consider subtopics, perspective you wish to take, geographical and/or chronological focus. Ask: What? Who? When? Where? Also consider what type of organization or disciplinary approach would be most likely to collect the information you are seeking. You may need to find resources in several different places.
  • Search Vocabulary: Make a list of search terms (keywords) that describe your topic. Include synonyms, relevant proper names, etc. Avoid very common words if possible, but also include some general (e.g., feminism) as well as precise (e.g., Stanton, Elizabeth Cady) descriptors.
  • Truncation: Use truncation symbols (?, *, or #) building on the root of a word or within a term to expand your retrieval. Specific symbol depends on the system you're using (UCLA Library Catalog, article database).
    Examples: wom?n = woman or women
    sex? = sex, sexual, sexuality, sexualized, etc.
  • Search Documentation: Keep careful track of your research process: sources consulted, date ranges covered, search terms used, as well as promising citations. Use a notebook, citation management system like EndNote, and/or email messages to yourself, etc. to document your research process.
  • Some things to consider when assessing the quality and usefulness of an item (for print and electronic resources):
    Author: Credentials? Scholar? Academic field? Other publications? First-hand participant?
    Publisher: University press? Other scholarly publisher? Trade? Other?
    Notes, etc.: Bibliography? Footnotes? Use to refine and/or expand research, and to identify potential primary source materials
    Periodical: Scholarly journal? Popular magazine?
    Date: Original publication date?
    Reviews: If a book, can you locate book reviews? If you are looking for film studies scholarship, note that there is a difference between scholarly film criticism and film reviews.
    Language: If you are working on an international topic, some relevant materials may not be written in English or available in translation. With primary sources, you may need to rely more heavily on English-language coverage of the period if you can't read the original language.