WS 460: Women and Sexuality

• Women 's Studies International
  covers the core disciplines in Women’s Studies to the latest scholarship in feminist research.
  Coverage Dates: 1972
• Contemporary Women\'s Issues
  Index to articles from 600 journals covering global information on women. Journals, newsletters, research reports from non-profit groups, government and international agencies, along with fact sheets. Information on women in over 150 countries covering disciplines like sociology, psychology, health, education and human rights.
  Coverage Dates: 1992 - present
• Project Muse
  an interdisciplinary collection of high quality, peer reviewed journals.
  Coverage Dates: Varies by journal
• JSTOR
  An archival collection of journal articles that includes over 140 titles in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. It does not provide access to the most current issues of the journals.
  Coverage Dates: Varies by Journal

Sometimes it's hard to tell if an article has gone through the peer review process.  While there are always exceptions,  most peer reviewed articles have certain characteristics. Here are a few things to look for to help you evaluate the articles you find:

• Where did you find the article?  It can be difficult to find peer reviewed materials using regular web search engines like Google.  You're more likely to find peer reviewed materials searching in the library's subscription databases .
  
• Where was it published? In something with a title like "Journal of..." or in something more familiar, like USA Today or The Economist?  Familar, "popular" magazines and newspapers are not peer-reviewed.
• What does it look like? While the format for peer reviewed articles varies somewhat in different disciplines, peer reviewed articles will almost always have many, many citations used throughout the article, with a long list of the sources cited at the end.  Articles published in science and social science fields will normally have specific, labelled sections like an abstract, an introduction, the methodology used, the results discovered, and a discussion and/or conclusion section.
• Who wrote it? Peer reviewed articles are frequently written collaboratively, meaning they have more than one author.  Also, you should be able to find the authors' affiliation somewhere on the article, meaning the university or research institute where they work.  If there's no author given at all, it's definitely not peer reviewed.

If you ever have questions about whether or not an article has been peer reviewed, you can always ask your instructor or a librarian for help.

Sometimes you find the perfect article, but the full text is nowhere to be found. There are several different methods you can try to get your hands on a copy, but here are the basics:

 

1. Check the catalog or the e-journals list to see if we have an electronic subscription to the journal. If we do, see if it covers the year you need.
2. Check the catalog to see if they have the journal on the shelf in Corvallis. If they do, they'll scan the article you need and email it to you.
3. If we don't have a subscription to the journal for the year you need, order the article through interlibrary loan (ILL) .

Some things that mess people up:

• Our databases don't always talk to our e-journals very well. Just because you don't see the .pdf doesn't mean we don't have it.
•  When you search the catalog or the e-journal list you must search for the JOURNAL title. Most people try the article title and that just won't work.
• Sometimes we get the journal but it's not the right date. If that's the case we'll have to get it from another library.
• Sometimes what you need is a book chapter rather than an article. Then you search for the book title in the catalog .

You can always, always, at any point with any question ask a librarian for help with this. We can get almost anything you need if you have a little time to spare. Don't waste your time or let yourself get frustrated!