LibGuides: Women's and Gender Studies (WGS): Locating Articles

Women's Gender Studies Databases

Search All isn't always the best place to go when doing research. In fact, some our our databases actually offer more control over you searching!

The following databases are good starting points for your Women's Gender Studies research. The contents of each are different (with some overlap) so it's always a good idea to check in multiple databases to ensure that you find all relevant information.

If you topic touches on another subject, such as education, health, or gender studies, be sure to look in those databases as well (see below).

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window Bibliographic database contains over 450,000 citations and abstracts for journal and magazine articles, book and media reviews, and dissertations covering the world's scholarly literature about the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes material from over 1,820 journals and magazines written in over 40 languages, although the majority of items were published in English. Most of the items in the database were issued after 1954. Many records contain links to full-text articles in other Library databases. [1954 - present]
Credo Reference's Academic Core This link opens in a new window The Credo Reference database is a portal to over 1,300 full-text reference titles from over 120 major publishers. Easy to search and browse, the Credo platform provides access to text, images, maps, statistics, and graphic concept maps to illustrate connections among and between topics. The titles, which range across subjects in art, biography, business, geography, history language, law, literature, medicine, music, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, the social sciences, and technology, are fully integrated through the Credo search platform, and the Credo database also provides numerous points for accessing other Cheng Library resources. Credo is a most useful starting point for general research on almost any topic.
ERIC (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window The ERIC database, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, provides access to more than 1.3 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials. Included in the database are citation records, abstracts, and (where available) full-text links for journal articles, books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers, and other education-related materials. [1966 - present]
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window GenderWatch is a full-text database useful for gender and women's studies, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research. The database offers over 300 titles, with more than 250 in full-text, from an array of academic, radical, community and independent presses, with coverage back to 1970. Researchers and teachers may access more than 219,000 full articles on wide-ranging topics like sexuality, religion, societal roles, feminism, masculinity, eating disorders, healthcare, and the workplace. [1970 - Present]
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new window This full-text database includes nearly 3 million dissertation and theses citations from around the world from 1861 to the present day together with over 1 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. [1861 - Present]
ProQuest Social Science Database This link opens in a new window ProQuest Social Science Database, a subset of the ProQuest Central database, offers indexing and full text for hundreds of academic journals, providing extensive coverage across a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, criminology, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology. Contains full-text content for over 1,200 titles.
PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window PsycARTICLES offers complete access to the full text of more than 80 landmark journals in behavioral science and related fields ranging from education, to nursing, to business, to neuroscience. The database currently contains over 160,000 articles from many of the most important journals in psychology, including 34 journals published by the American Psychological Association. Most titles feature complete content from the current issue back to volume 1, issue 1, with complete coverage of all subject areas relevant to psychological science including basic/experimental psychology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, education and school psychology, health psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, social psychology and social processes. Articles in PsycARTICLES are also accessible through links in the (larger) PsycINFO database. [1894 - present]
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window PsycINFO is the principal abstracting and indexing database covering peer-reviewed literature in the behavioral sciences and mental health. The database currently contains over 3.3 million records for articles from over 2,500 journals, books, and dissertations. Although the major focus of the database is psychology, it also includes information about the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, technology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law, and others. The records in PsycINFO are organized by a rigorous and detailed system of subject classification to support high-precision searching, and links to full-text content are provided where available. [1887 - present]
Scopus This link opens in a new window Scopus is a comprehensive database providing access to the research literature of the natural and physical sciences and the social sciences. The database currently provides over 50 million citation records and indexes over 20,000 peer-reviewed journals, over 390 trade publications, and over 370 book series. Also included are citations for over 5.5 million conference papers from proceedings and journals, over 25 million patent records from five patent offices, and articles in press from over 3,800 journals. [1823 - Present]
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Sociological Abstracts, which includes the companion file Social Services Abstracts, covers the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of serials publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers. [ 1952 - Present ]
Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window This bibliographic database provides citations and abstracts for materials in all areas of women's studies. It includes more than 958,800 records and spans from 1972 to the present and indexes journals, newsletters, bulletins, books, book chapters, reports, theses, dissertations and grey literature.

General Search Tips

Database Searching Tips

· Select/switch to the advanced search option

Do a keyword search first to see what is available
Too many results? Add an additional term or two
Too few results? Think of synonyms for your term(s)
Many databases have a Thesaurus function
Refine or limit your search to scholarly/peer reviewed articles
All databases allow you to print or email your results
Use the reference list from an article to locate additional sources

Creating Personal Folders in Databases

Many, if not all, of the library databases allow you to create accounts within the database to store your articles and searches for future reference.

When completing a search, you will often see options such as "Mark" or "Add to Folder" . If you decide to use this feature you will need to create an account in the database. The good news is that once you create an account in an EBSCO database such as PsycInfo, you can add items from any of their databases using the same username and password. The same holds true for the ProQuest databases.

Saving your citations/articles within the database also allows you to export them into RefWorks all at the same time.