Research Guides: Women's & Gender Studies : Graduate Research

Resources for Workshop (Fall 2023)

Graduate-level Research Skills

How to start?

Start with a question or a problem and go looking for ALL of the answers or solutions. Don't limit yourself to a predetermined thesis. Allow those that came before you to guide you. You're entering a conversation that began long before you started asking questions. Be humble.

Where to search?

Everywhere. That's not fair. Everywhere is overwhelming, but definitely in multiple places. As an undergraduate, cherry-picking a few sources from one place might have worked okay. As a graduate student, however, the goal is different. You are trying to become an expert in an area of scholarship which means locating the depth of what has been written. This requires time and ingenuity.

Primary Resources

Gale Primary Sources: Archives of Sexuality and Gender This link opens in a new window
Primary sources documenting the history and experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Newspapers This link opens in a new window
For most titles, the collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files.

Rod Library Special Collections & University Archives
The Rod Library Special Collections & University Archives collects, preserves, and provides access to rare, valuable, and delicate collections of books, manuscripts, and institutional records.
UNI Museum
The UNI Museum serves as an educational facility for museology and seeks to inspire critical thinking about world cultures and the natural world through original research, innovative technologies, educational programming, and exhibits. Through the use of material culture, the museum encourages multi-disciplinary learning opportunities to foster student and community engagement resulting in a deep appreciation of diverse cultural groups.

Primary and Secondary Resources

OneSearch (Rod Library) This link opens in a new window
Rod Library's online library catalog.
Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Elite, an EBSCO database, is a general academic index.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Content in JSTOR spans many disciplines, primarily in the humanities and social sciences.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE is a unique collaboration between libraries & publishers providing 100% full-text, to high quality humanities, arts, & social sciences journals from scholarly publishers

A-Z Databases
The interdisciplinary nature of Women's and Gender Studies may lead you to one of our discipline-specific databases.

Other Resources to Know

Interlibrary Loan (is your friend)

Contrary to what Google would have you believe, most information is not free. Rod Library pays a lot of money for the resources you access through our databases, unfortunately, budgets never go as far as we wish they would. If we do not have access to the material you need, our Interlibrary Loan staff will try to get it for you.

Interlibrary Loan
This page includes information about ILL services as well as a link to submit an ILL request.

In addition to filling out the form, many of our databases include a yellow "Find It" button.

This button will sometimes open the article's full-text from another product to which we subscribe. However, if we do not have full-text access, it will take you to a library catalog (OneSearch) screen where you can "Request from ILLiad."

NOTE: You must sign in to your Rod Library account using your CatID to see this option in the library catalog.

Google Scholar (may or may not be)

Google Scholar is a wonderful tool for your toolbox, but like any other tool, it cannot be the only one you use. Use Google Scholar with eyes wide open and

access it through the Rod Library homepage to also access UNI-accessible PDFs.
evaluate the results (including checking the journal's credibility in which the article was published).
Use it IN ADDITION to other databases, not in replacement of them.
do not pay for research! Utilize ILL or email your librarian for help.

UlrichsWeb This link opens in a new window
If you don't recognize a journal title, look it up! A simple Google search could be enough. UNI also provides access to a tool that can tell you a lot about a publication. You can also reach out to your librarian for support.