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Black Studies 3703 Guide to Resources the Contemporary African Diaspora

A guide to resources and techniques for finding resources relevant to the African Diaspora.

Look here first!

Database Search Tips

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Use Boolean Logic (AND, OR, NOT) to combine search concepts.

 

TOO FEW hits: OR to add synonyms; individual key words, NOT whole phrases; drop concept(s) with AND; truncate; consider other databases.

 

TOO MANY hits:  AND another concept into search; use other available limiters in the database.

 

Truncation symbols (?, *, !, +) will provide variant spelling after the root word. 

 

A wildcard (?, *) is a character that may be used in a search term to represent one or more other characters.

Do an advanced search and take advantage of the fields provided.

Use the subject headings/descriptors to find additional citations on your topic.  If that does not work, use the keyword search.

You can also use limits (e.g., publication year, language, words in the title, etc.) to narrow your retrieval. 
 
Set up an auto alert/RSS feed to monitor the research.  Instructions for setting up Auto Alerts/RSS feeds for many databases can be found here.

Search Strategies

SEARCHING

These are examples of possible types of searches.  They are not intended to define in any way the limits of searching for this topic.  The second search. for example, is for one nation.  There is significant immigration associated with quite a few of the 54 nations on the African Continent.  One could conduct a similar search using the name of any African nation of interest.  Although, there is guarantee that such a search will generate hits.  The third search is for J. Crush, who was written about this topic.  Of course, any relevant author might be substituted for Crush.

 

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