English : English 242 Indigenous Storytelling of the Prairies
A page to guide your research for your final essay
Start Here: Your librarian intro
Step 1: Mapping the research topics
- What are primary and secondary sources?Look at this before you start your research.
- Video: Mapping your research ideasConsider the essay topics provided for this assignment and then watch this video. Have a blank sheet of paper handy or open a Word document to brainstorm your ideas as you watch it.
- Worksheet: Mapping your researchUse this worksheet to map your research after thinking about the topic you've picked and watching the video. The second page provides examples of two ways to organize your ideas in Box 4.
Step 2: Developing a search strategy
- Video: Turning your ideas from Step 1 into a search strategyThe beginning of this video will be a brief review of what you've already done. But it quickly gets into how to use that work in a database.
- Guide: Look at an example of how to fill in a concept worksheetLook at all 4 steps and the final search phrases to use in database search boxes.
- Worksheet: Turn your ideas into a search strategyFill in this worksheet to prepare some potential database searches.
Step 3: Searching databases
- Video: General comments and USearch exampleSee what a search for an essay topic might look like.
- Video: You may need to reviseRemember that research does not always move forward in a linear way.
Suggested databases are listed here. You can find more possibilities at the Canadian Literature page and throughout the English Research Guide.
- USearchAccessed from the library's homepage.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), covering international literature, linguistics and folklore research. Coverage is international and includes indexing and links to titles from JSTOR language and literature collection.
- Google ScholarBe sure to go to Settings and then Library Links to turn on links to materials licensed by USask Library. Not sure if you should use Google Scholar? See https://library.usask.ca/search-the-library/library-search-tools/index.php#GoogleScholar
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Fulltext archive of core scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences and sciences, as well as 19th century British pamphlets. A unique e-journal database of complete backfiles of core scholarly journals in the arts and sciences. Current issues of the e-journal may be available direct from the publisher or through another e-journal aggregator such as Project MUSE. JSTOR and Project MUSE have enabled reciprocal linking for titles held in common so that users may access both current and archive holdings.
- Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database (CBCA) This link opens in a new window CBCA subsets (Business, Current Events, Education, and Reference) cover current events, culture, business, education, history, language, government etc. Sources include scholarly journals, magazines, dissertations, books, newspapers, news services and magazines. Formerly CBCA Complete: Canadian Business & Current Affairs. Note: For Newspaper text see Canadian Newsstream (formerly Canadian Newsstand) or Proquest databases option to add it to CBCA.
- Academic Search Complete (ASC) This link opens in a new window A comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database indexing journals, including thousands of peer-reviewed journals. Abstracts and indexes are also included for monographs, conference proceedings, and reports.
- Artemis Literary Sources This link opens in a new window Artemis Literary Sources searches across several literature databases subscribed to by the Library, and provides access to full text literary works, journal articles, criticism, reviews, biographies, and overviews and summaries. Includes Gale Virtual Reference Library, Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center, Scribner Writers, and Twayne's Authors.
