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African and African Diaspora Studies

Scholarly Journals and Articles

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Find Articles: General Help

Screenshot showing a box around the main library search bar. A second box is drawn around the Articles & More link.

Start searching with the big search box on the library homepage.

  • It searches most but not all the library's resources and will show results across six different categories: Articles & More, Books & Media, Journals, Databases, Research Guides, and the Library Website.

A more targeted place to search is at the link for Articles & More beneath the search bar.

On the left toolbar in an Articles & More search, check these boxes for credible & relevant results: 

  • Peer-Reviewed Journals

If you want to narrow even more, try these options to filter:

  • Resource Type
  • Subject
  • Creation Date

Keep an eye on the number of your search results. Start browsing when you feel you have a manageable number of results to skim through. 

Are you getting too many results?

Use the word AND (in all-caps) between your search terms.

  • latinos AND "civil rights"
  • "american revolution" AND family

Search for a Specific Phrase

Put quotations around a group of words like "united states" to retrieve results with that exact wording.

 

Do you need more results?

Use the word OR (in all-caps) between your search terms. 

  • 19th century OR nineteenth century
  • realise OR realize

Use an * at the end of a word to search for all forms of that word. 

  • educat* will return results for education, educator, educated, educating;etc.
  • environment* will also return results for environmentalism and environmentalist

An * can also be used to replace a character in a word.

  • wom*n will search for women and woman

 

Do you need more relevant results?

Use the word NOT (in all-caps) between your search terms.

  • UT NOT Tennessee
  • advertisement NOT magazine

Try grouping the above strategies in a single search: 

  • (children OR adolescents) AND disability AND (19th century OR nineteenth century)

Article Not Available Online?

In some cases, our online journal subscriptions do not provide access to specific articles. This issue is often due to the online subscription only covering a specific date range for the journal (e.g. 1992 to present). However, the article may be available online in another database.

If you don’t see a .pdf of the article you want, click Find it at UT to find it in another database or in print in the libraries.

If it is only in print in the Libraries or we don’t own the article, click Get a scan to have the article emailed to you. This is a FREE service available to all current UT students, staff and faculty, with a 3-5 day turnaround time.

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