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Women & Gender Studies: Finding Articles in Databases

This guide is intended to help students taking classes in the Women's & Gender Studies concentration.

Learn database search strategies and view the most useful library and open-access databases for women and gender studies research on this page.

Quick Tips for Most Article Databases

Search Keywords

Keyword searches are often the default search in databases. With a keyword search, the database searches for every instance of your search keyword or keywords as you typed them. If that word or word(s) appear anywhere in the:

  • title
  • summary
  • publication information
  • metadata
  • text or content itself

That source will be in your results list, even if it is not actually about your topic or has very little information related to it. 

(Google works similarly, but does a lot of prediction and guesswork through its algorithm about what you are looking for that our library databases may not.)

Search Filters and Limiters

Most library databases will let you filter your results by:

  • Full-Text (apply if you want to be able to access, view, or read whatever you see in the results immediately).
  • Date or Publication Date
  • Source Type (use if you only want to search for specific types of content - like journal articles, books, newspapers, streaming video, etc).
  • Scholarly or Peer-Reviewed (apply to see only these types of sources)

Sometimes you can choose these options when you first enter your search but sometimes you need to apply them after you have a search started.

Accessing Full-Text

If you selected Full-Text as a search limiter, you should see a link somewhere on the page to the PDF or HTML text version of the source. Depending on the database, this link may be in different places.

Sometimes you may see Open in..., View record in..., or Full-Text Finder in EBSCO Discovery Service, which means the source is located in another database. It's usually just a few more clicks to get to the PDF or HTML text in it's original location if that is the case.

Helpful Library Databases

You can find other databases that may fit your particular topic or source type needs by using the Subjects and Types filters on the Databases A-Z List

EBSCO Discovery Service

Not sure where to start? Want to see everything we have about your topic? Searched the above databases but want to make sure you aren't missing anything else? EBSCO Discovery Service searches across the library's collections in a single search. 

Apply search filters like Full text (or Full text available online), At my library, Peer-reviewed, Date range, Source type, and others to help you navigate the results. 

Suggested Open Access Databases

Browse Some Women & Gender Studies Journals & Publications

You can use the libraries' Publication Finder tool to identify and browse additional women and gender focused journals. 

When the library doesn't have access to an article you want...

You may discover an article that would be useful for your topic, only to find that the library does not have full-text access to it through our databases. If that happens, you can submit an interlibrary loan request, and we will see if another library with access to full-text of that article is willing to share it with us. Most often, the articles will be shared with you by email, but they may take 2-3 days to arrive. Work with a librarian if you need help identifying books to interlibrary loan or assistance with the request.