Often you'll want to explore a topic before you begin your in-depth research. Rather than spend a lot of time sifting through Google results, try using the encyclopedias and other resources in the library. These are great for concise, reliable background information. Below are a few examples.

Cinderella: 345 variants	Main GR75.C4 C5
Dictionary of Folklore	Main Ref GR 35.P5 1999
American Folklore: an Encyclopedia	Main Ref GR 101.A54 1996
The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales	Curr Lab PN6071.F15 A66 2002
When Dreams Came True : Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition	Main Library PN3437 .Z57 2007
Guide to Folktales in the English Language	Main Ref Z 5983 F17 A83 1987
Dictionary of Chicano Folklore	EGSL Ref GR 111.M49 C37 2000
Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend and Myth	Main Ref GR 825 R67 2000
Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales	Main Ref PN 3437 O94 2000
Cinderella in America : a Book of Folk and Fairy Tales	Main Library GR105 .C45 2007
Index to Fairy Tales 1987-1992	Main Ref Z 5983 F17 S67 1994
Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were	Main Ref GR 355 P33 1998
Encylopedia of Fable	Main Ref PN 980 S66 1998

Finding Journals and Magazine Articles

There is a distinction between journals and magazines. Journals are often described as 'scholarly', 'peer-reviewed' or 'refereed', and are the types of publications that you will most often use for your research papers. Here's a chart from UT San Antonio describing the main differences between these two forms of serial publications.

So, how do you find articles in scholarly journals? The most efficient way is to use an index or database . The complete list of article indexes and databases available at UCSB is at http://www.library.ucsb.edu/databases. For this assignment these six indexes listed below will be particularly useful.
   Note: For off-campus access to these and other licensed databases, you must first register with the library's Proxy Server.

• Expanded Academic
• MLA
• LION
• Gender Watch
• Film Index International
• AFI

• Articles from popular and scholarly journals in most disciplines. Check the "peer-reviewed" box to limit your search to scholarly articles.
• Type your keywords in the search box. Example: cinderella and adaptation.
• Use the truncation symbol * to catch variations of a word. For example, a search for crit* would find criticism, critique, critical, critics and all plural endings.
• Some citations will include the full text online. If they don't, use the to track down the article.
• Don't forget to write down the citation of the article so you know which volume and issue to get if you need to find the print version.
• Print, email, and download functions are along the top of the screen (first "mark" the records).
  
  

• Major resource for literary and folklore studies. Includes citations (not full text) to books, articles, dissertations, conference papers, and more. Worldwide coverage.
• Looks very different from Expanded Academic above, but does essentially the same thing: it finds articles and book chapters on a particular topic.

  

• Follow the to either link to the full text if it's available, or to find the call number of the journal so that you can get the print copy from the library.
• Email, print or save options are toward the top of the page.

LION

• Huge literature database that includes both citations and full text. There is some overlap with MLA, but it is still worth checking both indexes.
• Type your keywords in the default Quicksearch box. Example: "little red riding hood"
• Use if the full text is not available in LION.
• To email, print, or download records, use the checkbox next to each citation. Then click the Marked List link toward the top of the page.

GenderWatch

• A full text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad range of subject areas
• Articles in some cases go back to the 1960s, which makes this especially useful for tracing changes in gender roles over the last quarter century
• From the home page, click the red "continue" button
• Click "Advanced" from the row of search tabs at the top
• Enter your keywords in the text boxes. Example:

  

Film Index International

• Great source for critical articles and reviews, from the time of a film's production to the present
• Click on Film Search in the upper left corner
• Enter "snow white" in the title box
• Once you click on a production, scroll to the bottom of the page to the references
• To track down these reviews and articles, use Pegasus and enter the name of the journal in which the review appeared. Don't forget to write down the citation so you know which volume and issue to get!

AFI

• Great for primary sources (contemporary reviews of the film)
• Go to Advanced Search
• Enter search terms in the Film Title box. "beauty and the beast" works fine
• Results include all production information, a detailed plot review, and citations to contemporary reviews of the movie.
• To track down these reviews, use Pegasus and enter the name of the journal in which the review appeared (e.g., Daily Variety)

Use Pegasus to find books, videos, and other materials at the UCSB Libraries. Begin by using a keyword search. This will search the regular places of the catalog record (author, subject, title...) and will also scan the tables of contents (the chapters) of most catalog records.

Because critical, scholarly articles often appear in the form of book chapters, this keyword searching is a useful tool.
Note: Again, the * symbol will pick up alternate endings to a word, so that femin* will find library records that contain the words feminine, feminist, feminism, and so forth.

KEYWORD examples:

• cinderella and femin*
• folklore west indies [or any country]
• folklore retelling
• beauty and the beast film
• snow white and gender
• folklore history
• cinderella film

• fairy tales -adaptations-history and criticism
• discourse analysis, narrative
• cinderella(tale)-history and criticism
• fairy tales - psychological aspects

• The Internet can be a great source for information, but remember: to get scholarly, reliable sources that you can use for your research, you'll need
  to dig deeper than what's available on the free web.
• Pay attention to domain names -- a website name ending in .edu or .gov may well be more authoritative than a .com or .org , but not necessarily.
• Remember also that quality control doesn't exist on the Web, so you'll need to be especially careful to evaluate what you find.
• A quick checklist:
  • Is the website authoritative and reliable? How can you tell?
  • Can you determine who wrote it, and why? Is it somebody's personal page?
  • Is it current and regularly updated, or does that matter?
  • What is the scope, coverage, and intention of the site? Is it intended to sell, entice, persuade, and explain?
  • Be sure to give credit to any website you use.
  • A few website suggestions:
  
  
  Film versions of Perrault tales
  University of Pittsburgh Folklore pages
  Story Dynamics
  Sur La Lune
  Rutgers University Snow White pages

You have to deal with the advertising, but there are some useful online sites for formatting your ciations, and many article databases will also format for you. Choose the one that works for you, or use one of the manuals at the Reference Desk.

Citation Machine
Knight Cite (Calvin College)