Span 250D Mexican Civilization and Culture

To begin searching for secondary sources, access the database: MLA International Bibliography.  To the top right, you will see the worlds Choose Databases. Click on it, and then check off these additional databases: Academic Search Complete, Humanities International Complete, and Historical Abstracts.  These are all under the Ebsco platform; you can search them simultaneously.  Click OK.

• One way to start your search is by typing in the last name of the primary author, followed by a comma and then the first name of the author. So, for example, you could search for Azuela, Mariano.  You could also search for Cortes, Hernan.  These would be two separate searches.  You would search for these authors by Subject.  Click on the arrow at the end of the box and choose SU for subject.  
• Then using the Boolean operator AND (the default), refine your author search by typing in the title of the book you want to find criticism about.  You would also search by Subject for the title. 
• So, an example search would be  Azuela, Manual (by Subject) AND Los de abajo (by Subject). 
• You can refine your search by looking to the left and clicking in the box that says Scholarly (Peer reviewed) Journals.
• You can further refine your search by selecting Spanish from the box designating Languages
• 

Another great source to look for both journal articles and book articles about the primary sources on your list is JSTOR.  JSTOR is a large, interdisciplinary databases, which pulls from many sources in the humanities, as well as other subject areas.  Almost all of the holdings in JSTOR are full text. 

• There are no subject headings in JSTOR.  For your assignment, I would recommend searching for the primary author on one line (last name first) in All fields and the title of the work on the second line in All fields.  You may put quotes around the title of the work so the database searches for the title as a whole phrase. 
• On the left side of the page, check the boxes which say Articles and Books; the resulting list will give you scholarly journal articles and book articles from anthologies.  I would not select Reviews, as this would include book reviews. 
• Choose Spanish from the pull down menu for All Languages

Probably, the most comprehensive place to look for book articles in anthologies is WorldCat.  WorldCat is a catalog for books in libraries worldwide.

• To search, once again type in the author's last name first, and change the keyword search to subject.
• Then type in the title, or one or two keywords from the title, and also search by subject.
• Check the box below that says Books to get articles in book anthologies. 
• Lastly, type in the Spanish and select language phrase from the pull down menu to the right.  

An example search would be:

• de la cruz, juana ines as Subject
• fliotea as Subject
• Spanish as Language Phrase 

To see the entire list of databases supporting World Languages & Literature, click here.
Or go to library.csus.edu (our library homepage).  Click on the database link at the bottom (bright orange circle), look at the top of the next page and find the pull down menu which says, All Subjects, and choose World Languages & Literature.  Twenty databases should be listed.  

This guide was created by Maria Kochis on October 1st, 2018, for students of SPAN 250D