Clark Family Library: Gender & Women's Studies: Find Background Information

Why Use Background Information?

Finding background information is an important part of the research process. It helps you:

learn about topics with which you are unfamiliar
identify important facts related to your topic - keywords, dates, events, history, and names and organizations
refine your topic
find additional sources of information through bibliographies and works cited

Reference Databases

Reviewing the literature or gaining background information on a topic is a critical first step in the research process. You might do this by conducting a Google search or going to Wikipedia and reading up on a subject. We suggest using the reference databases the library subscribes to or books found in the reference section as a scholarly alternative.

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Offers full-text access to over 12,000 journals, including more than 10,000 peer-reviewed titles. A great database to start your research
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
This database is great for background information. It provides access to more than 630 full-text reference books and over 3 million full-text entries. It covers literary criticism in detail, business, history, Shakespeare, biographies. Credo.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Formerly known as Gale Virtual Library (GVRL), this database is an online library of reference eBooks, including many titles from academic book publishers. The database is multidisciplinary with strengths in world and American history, literature, and economics. A great database to start your research.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full- text of back issues of peer-reviewed journals as far back as the 1800s in the arts, sciences, ecology, botany, language, literature, and music. Multidisciplinary.

Pew Research Center RSS Feed

Below are links to the most recent postings on gender from the Pew Research Center.

Newspaper Databases

Use our newspaper databases to find newspaper articles on your topic. This is a great way to get some background information, refine your topic, develop keywords, and learn about current events or issues.

Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window
Full-text of 28 national and international newspapers, selected full-text for more than 260 regional newspapers, and some full-text television and radio news transcripts. Coverage varies by newspaper with some beginning 2000 to present.
New York Times (Proquest Database) This link opens in a new window
Contains searchable full-text articles from the New York Times newspaper from 1980-present. We also have access to the New York Times through their website which covers back to 1851. Since this content is in a database you may find that it's easier to search and filter than nytimes.com. Content discovered through this database will not have images included but articles through nytimes.com will.