Find Articles - UGS 302: Music, Identity and Difference - Seeman - LibGuides at University of Texas at Austin

Step 1: Brainstorm Search Terms (Keywords)

Library databases and Google can't be searched the same way so take a few moments to come up with a search strategy before diving into a database.

Step 1: Think about the key concepts of your topic and search those instead of an entire phrases or sentences.

Step 2: Think of other terms you could use that are synonyms or related (they could be a broader or narrower aspect). This often requires that you do a little background research to learn more.

Step 3: Connect your terms using AND and OR:

Remember -

AND narrows your topic (use AND between terms if you want them all to appear in your results)
OR broadens your topic (use OR between terms if you want any, not all, to appear in your results)

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Music Index
Articles from the field of Music
Oxford Music Online
Background information on all aspects of music. We only have access for 8 users at a time so please log out when you're done.

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Scholarly Journal Articles

Peer Review

You may be asked to look for peer-reviewed, research, scholarly, referred or academic articles - all names for the same type of source. What are they? These articles go through the peer-review process before they are published. A scholar/researcher/professor submits their article to a journal and it is sent to other experts in the field (peers) to ensure that they contain high-quality, original research important to the field. This is a measure of quality control other types of articles don't go through.

If you can't tell whether or not a journal is peer-reviewed, check Ulrichsweb.

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type in the title of the journal
peer-reviewed journals will have a referee jersey ("refereed" is another term for "peer-reviewed") - example below