The William & Mary Libraries have a staggering number of databases, so it's hard to know where to start. It depends upon your topic. For this course/topic, I suggest a few possible starting points:
When do use JSTOR?
JSTOR Is an outstanding resource that puts thousands of journals in one place.
It is not a good place to start a search because it has no indexing. So our search above for
"boarding school*" AND (indigenous OR "native american*") and Oregon
would not be useful.
If you are looking for a specific institution, though, like the Brafferton Indian School, it can be very useful.
Compare these search results:
Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: Oregon AND "Indian boarding school"
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: "Indian boarding schools" OR "Indian schools"
NOT - exclude a term. Example: NOT Canada
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (Virginia OR "West Virginia") AND "Indian boarding schools" = search for Indian boarding schools in Virginia or West Virginia
Example: (schools NOT academies) AND women = search for women's universities, excluding women's academies
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "Indian boarding schools"
Example: "brafferton school"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Captain Smith" will exclude all results for "Captaine Smith," which was the original spelling. "Indian boarding schools" will exclude "Indian Schools"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Virginia* will give you results for Virginia, Virginian, Virginians.
Example: wom* will cover women, woman, womens, womanhood.
Example: school* covers school, schools, schoolroom, schoolbook, schoolmarm, etc
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Virginia* will bring up articles on the Virginia opossum. Wom* will include wombat.
