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Topic: How to do Anthropological Research — Where to Find Anthro Articles

This guide will help students from Sciences, Humanities, Health, Pharmacy and Business majors taking W course in Anthropology how to develop anthropological research topics and keywords to find articles from anthropological journals.

Finding Academic Articles in Anthro Journals

Tip: Use quotation marks (" ") when searching for phrases to increase your results!

Searching for articles in anthropology is not hard but it needs some planning before starting:

Create a list of synonyms on your topic (Check the How to Pick at Topic Page for more tips)

► You can use your syllabus or textbook to find some preliminaries keywords

► Pay attention what phrases scholars used to describe the topic you are interested in. Research terminology change through time.

Tip: To narrow down results consider the following:

Select geographical locations:

►Regions: e.g. Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Latin America, Oceania

►Specific country, state, city, hospital, university: e.g. Mexico; Detroit; "John Hopkins Hospital"; "University of Connecticut"

Select a specific group of people that identify by their occupation, ethnicity, sex, age, religion, social class, medical condition

►Examples: "Day Laborers"; "Hispanic American"; Male/Female/Transgender/LGBT; Teenagers/Seniors; Catholics/Protestants; Upper Class/Middle Class/Working Class; "Cancer patients"

Select a specific timeframe:

►Historical events: Cold War, Iran Revolution, Cuban Missile Crisis

►Twentieth Century: by decades (1960s, 1990s, etc.); a meaningful year, 2011

►Current events: at least 5 years old.

♠Events too recent (in the last 3 years) may not have generated enough academic/scholarly studies but you can research those events by searching newspapers databases

Find other keywords by looking at your syllabus and the readings provide by your professor for other terminology and try different synonyms to make sure you are finding all possible sources.

Tips: When searching a general and/or multidisciplinary database to maximize your results, add the keywords, "anthropology", "anthropological",  "ethnographical" or "ethnography" as an additional keyword, e.g. "coming of age" ritual AND "anthropological studies". This technique works too when searching Google Scholar. When searching an anthropological database or journal, you don't need to use the words anthropological or archeological.

 

Finding Articles

The databases in this table are organized by subjects, from multidisciplinary to specific subject (sociocultural anthropology to medical anthropology). There is also some journal suggestions for some topics. Search both multidisciplinary databases, subject specific databases and journals to find the articles closest to your topic for your paper.

These type of databases are useful to find anthropological articles indexed in multidisciplinary databases.

Databases:

Journals:

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Journals:

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Journals:

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Journals:

Check these journals for ethnobotany articles:

When studying current events, the best sources to use are newspapers databases. These are because the events are so new that academic research hasn't caught up yet. You can also study a current event through the lens of a previous event that has been studied more thoroughly, e.g. Studying the current crisis of unaccompanied immigrants children coming to the U.S. in the last 3 year through the lens of a similar pattern in the 1980s.

Getting Full Text Articles and Chapters

In a database, look for
UConn Full Text button

UConn Full Text will help you

1. Get the full text online if UConn subscribes to it
2. Request what we do not own through Interlibrary Services
3. Request scans of articles and chapters we own in print through Interlibrary Services

Check to see if we own the journal in print. Request a scan using Scan on Demand

Google Scholar Tips

Google Scholar (GS) is an excellent place to start your research if you are unsure about what keywords to use. GS is more flexible regarding trying out terms and will suggest other options as you type. Pay attention of what works and use it in our subject specific databases.

Google Scholar

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