Tips for Chican@ Studies 153 Research Paper
Fall 2005

This website is to help you with the research component of your 2nd essay for this class. Professor Roque Ramírez will provide details about what you can research. This website will help you think about approaching that research and using the different library resources.

PRIMARY vs SECONDARY SOURCES
Princeton University Library has a good website explaining the differences between primary and secondary resources. It also gives examples of terms to use when searching the library catalog or other databases.

Creating Search Strategies
Before you start searching, you need to think about what you are looking for and how it might be described by someone else. For this class you are looking at queer studies and latino studies. What synonyms can you come up with for these terms?

(queer OR gay OR homosexual* OR lesbian)
AND
(latin* OR hispanic OR chican* OR "mexican american")

There is a lot going on in that search. We connect similar terms with OR and then enclose those in parenthesis to establish that as a concept. Then we connect those parenthetical sets with AND. This searching is called Boolean and can be done with many of our databases (but not all). The * used above in homosexual* is a truncation symbol. This means that we'll get all the words that start with homosexual (homosexuals, homosexuality, etc). Most databases have a truncation symbol and most use the *.

Finding Primary Sources

BOOKS
Use Pegasus to find books containing primary sources.

• Go to advanced search
• Do keyword searches
• Search for queer latino AND one of the terms from Princeton's page (interview, letters, diaries, etc)
  • Example: (gay or homosexual* or queer) AND (latin* or chican* or hispanic) AND interview*

Here is what it looks like in Pegasus:

Pegasus also will tell you the music CDs and videos the library owns. You can check out music CDs in the Main Library but not ones in the Music Library. Search the musical artist as AUTHOR in Pegasus to see what we have by that person or group.

To see the videos we own, go to Advanced Search. You can do a keyword search (example: queer or gay or homosexual* or lesbian) and then limit by Format (select Video). Be careful when using latin* because you will get all the videos about Latin America. You might want to search that as latino* or latina*

You can also use Melvyl if you don't find enough in Pegasus. Remember that it will take about a week to get materials you find in Melvyl.

ARTICLES
Finding articles is a 2-step process. First you start with an index, then you get the article. The indexes are available from the library's Indexes and Databases page.
The following databases are good places to start in finding primary sources:

Chicano database

• Has information about Chicanas/os and other US Latinas/os
• Go to advanced search
• Do keyword searches
• Type 1 concept in each box (do not try Boolean -- no "OR")
• Connect the boxes with AND (in the drop-down menu)
• Use ? to truncate
  • Example: homosexual? AND interview?
• Use UC eLinks to see if we have the item

Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI)

• Contains references to articles published in and about Latin America
• Use keyword search box
• You can limit by language (you can check more than one box)
• You can limit to US Hispanics only
• Do not use Boolean
• HAPI automatically truncates (if you use a * it will get confused)
  • Example: homosexual interview
• Use UC eLinks to see if we have the item

Ethnic NewsWatch

• Contains regional and ethnic newspapers
• Has a lot of full-text material
• Go to Advanced Search
• Search ABSTRACTS (change drop-down menu at the end of the line)
• Use * to truncate
• Use Boolean and search bilingually
  • interview* or entrevista*

Finding Secondary Sources

BOOKS
Use Pegasus and Melvyl like you did for the primary resources. Be creative with the terms you use.

ARTICLES
In addition to HAPI, Chicano Database, and Ethnic NewsWatch you will want to search the following other databases to find secondary source information:

Sexual Diversity Studies: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Abstracts

• Can use Boolean searching including parenthesis
• Use Boolean Search from the drop-down menu
• Use * to truncate
• Use UC eLinks to see if we have the item

GenderWatch

• Go to Advanced Search
• Use Boolean searching
• Use * to truncate
• Some full-text is available online, otherwise use UC eLinks to see if we have the item
• Some items you find in this database will be primary source material

America: History & Life

• Use Keyword search box
• Can use Boolean searching including parenthesis
• Use * to truncate
• Limit by language (you can type English OR Spanish)
• Use UC eLinks to see if we have the item

Sociological Abstracts

• Can use Boolean searching including parenthesis
• Do keyword searches (change drop-down menu to KEYWORD for each line)
• Use * to truncate
• Use UC eLinks to see if we have the item

Expanded Academic ASAP

• Go to Advanced Search
• Do Keyword searches
• Can use Boolean searching including parenthesis
• Use * to truncate
• Limit by language (you can type English OR Spanish)
• Use UC eLinks to see if we have the item

Gary Colmenar: colmenar@library.ucsb.edu
Anne Barnhart: abarnhar@library.ucsb.edu