You are required to write a 8-10 page analysis of a Taoist text. Details of this research requirement can be found on the course syllabus. This webpage is to help you with the research part of this requirement.

SELECTING YOUR TOPIC

SEARCH STRATEGIES

• Use OR to combine terms when either one will do: Taoist or Daoist
• Use AND to force the results to have both terms: Taoist and meditation
• In some article databases, combine OR and AND by separating the sets with parenthesis: (Taoist or Daoist) and (ethics or morality)
  • To combine OR and AND in Pegasus, go to the Advanced Search screen.
  • Use OR in the search boxes and connect the boxes with AND
• Most databases let you truncate by using a symbol to get other letters: taois* gets you taoist, taoists, taoism...
  • The truncation symbol can be a *, ?, ! or other symbols depending on the database
  • Be careful that you don't truncate too soon: ta* would also get you tagalog, tabernacle and all other words starting with "ta"

FINDING SOURCES

• Go to the Advanced Search screen
  • Keyword: taois* or daois* AND Keyword: ethic*
  • Keyword: taois* or daois* AND Keyword: meditation
  • Limit by language
• Use "request" feature to get items that are IN PROCESS
• Use Melvyl to request items that are in SRLF

Use Melvyl to find books at other UC campuses

• Search like Pegasus
• Note that while Pegasus defaults to keyword, Melvyl defaults to title searches
• Request items to have them sent to UCSB
• Allow about a week to get the items
• Use this if the book you want at UCSB is checked out

ARTICLES
To find articles, first you must use an article index and then you have to find the actual article itself. To access these databases from off campus, you must go through the proxy server. From the Library's home page, select RESEARCH then ARTICLE INDEXES & DATABASES to find the following databases.

Expanded Academic ASAP

• Use Keyword Search to find articles on your topic
  • (Taois* or daois*) and meditation
• LIMIT to refereed publications (this gives you scholarly journals)
• Results are either full-text articles, abstracts, or citations
  • If the result is an ABSTRACT or a CITATION, use UC e-links to check if UCSB has the journal

Bibliography of Asian Studies

• Click on Search the Bibliography of Asian Studies
• Go to Advanced Search so you can combine terms
• Does not accept OR or AND within the search boxes (type only one term in each box)
  • Most results should come up with taois* but to be thorough you might do a second search using daois*
• Choose broad terms since you are searching broad subject categories and the article title
• Use * to truncate
• To get the item, you must look up the BOOK TITLE or JOURNAL TITLE in Pegasus. This is the title found in the Citation field

ATLA Religion

• Not as strong for non-Western religions, but worth using
• Go to Advanced Search screen
• Keyword search to find articles on your topic
  • example: (water OR sea OR aqua* OR flood OR deluge) AND (creation myth* OR cosmogon*)
• If the record says "Doc. Type: Review," it is a book review and not an article you can use for this paper. You might want to find the reviewed book, but the review itself will not be an acceptable source
• Look for "Doc. Type: Article"
• yellow-blue icon indicates that UCSB has a subscription to the journal
  • to get your hands on the article, search the JOURNAL TITLE (found in the "Source" field) as a TITLE in Pegasus
  • UC e-links does not always give you reliable information when linking from ATLA

Ask for help!