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Locating resources for theology students: journal articles

Friday, November 16, 2007. 0 Comments:

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If you are a student of theology or religion in a major university in North American or the UK, there is a very good chance that you have access to hundreds of electronic resources, many of which may be useful for your research. However, there is also a good chance that, although you know these resources exist, you simply don't know where to begin, or, you may have experience with these resources but feel your searches are inefficient. If either of these situations describes you, don't panic; these are common experiences that almost everyone has to address at some point. Fortunately, there are some ways that you may be able to improve your use of these resources. In the next few paragraphs I will show you a few strategies that I have found useful.

1) Online databases
At Durham University postgraduate students have access to thousands of electronic resources through dozens of digital databases and journal directories. The sheer number of resources to search through can be overwhelming. To begin with then it is important to identify the sources that are most likely going to have useful resources for theology students. Some of these include: JSTOR, Project Muse, Oxford Journals Online, Cambridge Journals Online, Blackwell Resources, Proquest Digital Dissertations, and Index to Theses In Great Britain and Ireland. All of these databases offer access to journal articles, journal abstracts, and / or PhD and MA dissertation abstracts. As you begin researching for a paper or your dissertation, you could search each of these for your subject. Such a search would offer a fairly thorough scan of relevant materials, but it would take quite a while to complete, and, surprisingly, leave many resources unexamined. Although each of these resources is impressive in its own way, and many are essential tools for research, they are not necessary the best tools for locating resources. After using these tools for a while in my own research, I realized that I had overlooked a database that both simplifies the search process and also scans a broader range of materials: the ATLA Religion Database. This tool searches over 500 journals - many more than any of the databases above - and it will display all your results in one location, meaning you do not have to search database after database. Now, before you become too excited and wonder why your institution spends money on those other databases, you must know that, from what I can tell, ATLA RD only exists to do this one thing. It offers exhaustive searches of hundreds of journals, but that is it. At least at Durham, you cannot actually access the materials online through ATLA RD (this is where the other databases come in). Nevertheless, with it, you can quickly locate almost all recent articles on your subject, as long as you search well.

2) Searching
ATLA RD offers you several ways to search. You can search by keyword, subject, author, and title, among others. All of these methods have their use at certain times, but, if you are just beginning your research in a particular area, you may want to begin with a keyword search. The reason for this is that it offers the broadest range of results. As long as you are conducting a search that fairly narrow, ATLA RD's search results should present you with a decent balance of results that are within, without, or on the periphery of your research area. To confirm the value of keyword searches, and to illustrate an effective way of searching, I will give you an example of how you might conduct an initial search of a research subject. Let's say you are researching Martin Luther's knowledge of the Church Fathers. Begin your search by choosing to do an advanced search using the ATLA Religion Database. Now, in the first field type Luther. In the second, type Patristic.



As of November 2007, ATLA RD produces 27 "hits" for this search, some of which are irrelevant to our subject, some of which may be useful, and some of which are absolutely applicable to our research. To be thorough, we may wish to also search for Luther in the first field and Church Fathers in the second. This produces 45 results, but many of these additions appear unhelpful (it seems some consider Luther a Church Father, which of course is not what we mean in this context). This illustrates the importance of carefully choosing search terms. We can also search by subject, but Luther and Patristic produces no results. Luther and Church Fathers gives us 24 hits, but appears to be about as balanced as our previous search, though it omits three works. In general, I trust keywords over subjects, as keywords seem to be assigned slightly less arbitrarily than categories. Finally, one might search by title. This will usually produce the fewest results, but they tend to be the most accurate. Unfortunately, such a search often omits peripheral works that may be useful. For these reasons, I recommend you begin your research with some careful keyword searches.

If you have strategies for finding useful articles please share them with the rest of us. Happy researching.

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