Research Guides: HIST 490C: Politics and Religion in Early Modern Britain (Fall 2024): Why So Many Databases?

Let's compare results

Let's say I'm interested in Thomas More's Utopia.

For research articles, there are 3 good options:

Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
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Covers all aspects of world history (excluding the US and Canada) since 1450. Includes journal articles, books, reviews, conference proceedings, dissertations, etc. published after 1954. About 250 History journals in this database are not findable in EBSCO's Academic Search database, making this the go-to database for finding world history articles.
MLA International Bibliography with Full-Text This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present.
ATLA Religion Database This link opens in a new window
All fields of religion: biblical studies, archaeology, world religions, church history, ethics, etc. Citations to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays. Coverage: 1908-present.

In each, I try the exact same search:

"thomas more" AND utopia

"thomas more" AND utopia in Historical Abstracts
Limited to Peer Reviewed articles
"thomas more" AND utopia in MLA
"thomas more" AND utopia in MLA, limited to Peer Reviewed articles
"thomas more" AND utopia in ALTA Religion Database
Peer Reviewed searh for "thomas more" AND utopia in ALTA

Questions

Revised search for "thomas more" AND utopia AND politics

Question to consider:

The point: subject databases matter!