English: finding evidence

The library currently subscribes to the following collections on JSTOR: 

JSTOR Essential Collection - this includes

Art & Sciences I

Art & Sciences II

Art & Sciences III

Art & Sciences IV

Art & Sciences VII

These are multi-discipline archive collections covering a wide range of subjects 

19th Century British Pamphlets - This is a collection of more than 26,000 pamphlets published in the 19th century. They chronicle political and socioeconomic issues and debates of concern to Britain at the time, and the digitized files preserve images and contemporary annotations.

 JSTOR can be accessed on and off campus via the A-Z index under 'J'. The content is also all available via Library Search.

• Is all journal content on JSTOR peer reviewed? Nearly all of the journals collected in JSTOR are peer-reviewed publications, but the archives also contain primary sources and content that is much older than today's standard peer-review process. 
• Why can't I access the full-text of all content on JSTOR? The library subscribes to some, but not all of the collections in JSTOR, so if you search the whole database you may come across materials we don't have access to. To find out how you can obtain articles we don't subscribe to, see the 'Access to content on JSTOR' tab 
• What is the "moving wall?" Much of the journal content on JSTOR has a "moving wall," a set period of time (usually three to five years) between a journal issue’s publication date and its availability as archival content on JSTOR. 
• Is JSTOR content searched by Library Plus? - Yes- the subscribed content from JSTOR is all available via Library Plus

Access to JSTOR is limited to the journals, books, and primary sources that are part of the collections the library subscribes to (see the JSTOR collections tab for more information). To ensure your results only contain subscribed content, either:

• Before you search: use the "select an access type" drop-down box and limit to 'read and download'
• After you search: use the "Access Type" menu to limit your results by 'content I can access'.

Accessing content not available on JSTOR

The library provides access to eJournals through three main sources, these include: subscriptions to individual titles, subscriptions to major collections (e.g. Taylor and Francis); subscriptions to full text databases giving full access to journals  (e.g. JSTOR). Even if we don't have full text access to a particular journal on JSTOR, it is possible that we subscribe to it through one of our other sources. For more information on discovering what access you have to a specific journal see the Finding Articles tab in the side navigation bar
Inter-Library Loans
You can request articles and books, not held in stock, through the inter-library loan process and we'll try to get it from another library for you. For more information about inter-library loans, how to request them go to the inter-library loan guide.

The Basic Search box appears on the main page of JSTOR and also at the top of most content pages on the site. You can type any search terms into the Basic Search box and JSTOR will search for those terms across all of the content subscribed to by the library.

Here are a few things you can do to easily improve your search results:

• Place words within quotation marks to search for exact phrases (“to be or not to be”).
• Use Boolean operators (and, or, not) to search for alternate terms (history OR historical).
• Use ti: to search for the title of an article or book (ti:"body ritual among the nacirema")

You can perform fairly complex queries within basic search and the following tabs will give you more information about effective searching

You can combine search terms and fields using AND, OR, and NOT (Boolean logic).

AND: When you combine search terms with AND in a full-text search, your results contain everything in which both terms appear. Combining search terms makes your search results more precise.eg Cat AND Dog

OR: Using OR between search terms allows to you find all items that contain either term. Using OR will search for items that contain either the word "cat", the word "dog", or both. For example: cat OR dog

NOT: Searches using NOT will only find items that do not contain the search term following it. NOT must be capitalized. To find all items with the word cat that do not contain the word dog, search for: cat NOT dog, 

Searching for an exact phrase

Use quotation marks " " to search for an exact phrase eg  "american revolution" This will really help to refine your searching

Grouping Combined Search Terms

Parentheses allow you to determine the order in which terms are combined. The search "currency reform" AND (russia OR "soviet union") will search for items that contain the phrase currency reform and that contain either russia or soviet union. By using parentheses, you may control the grouping of search terms.

Proximity Searching
JSTOR search allows you to find terms that are within a set number of words of each other using the tilde (~) symbol. In this example ("debt forgiveness"~10), you will only get results with the terms debt and forgiveness within ten words of each other. You can replace "10" with a different number of words

Using the tilde symbol 
You can find words with spellings similar to your search term by using the tilde (~) symbol at the end of a search term. For example, ti:dostoyevsky~ helps find items with dostoyevsky in the item title field, as well as variant spellings like dostoevsky, dostoievski, dostoevsky, dostoyevski, dostoevskii, dostoevski, etc.
Important to know 
This way of searching encompasses a very large number of words. Narrowing this kind of search to the item title or another field is recommended. The first letter always remains the same.

Wildcards 
Wildcards take the place of one or more characters in a search term. A question mark is used for single character searching. An asterisk is used for multiple character searching. Wildcards are used to search for alternate spellings and variations on a root word. Wildcard characters cannot be used in place of the first letter of a word or within an exact phrase search. For example:
wom?n finds the words woman, women, womyn,
bird* finds bird, birding, birdman, birds, and other words that start with bird
organi?ation finds organization or organisation
behavior* searches for behavior, behavioral, behaviorist, behaviorism, or behaviorally

Limiting a Search to a Specific Field

Use the drop-down boxes to limit search terms to the title, author or abstract,
Important to know:

• If you limit your search to the abstract field, you will search only a subset of the journal content on JSTOR. JSTOR doesn't create abstracts for content that was published without them; abstracts exist for only about 10% of the articles.  

Combining Search Terms

Use the drop-down boxes to combine search terms using the Boolean operators, AND/OR/NOT and NEAR 5/10/25. The NEAR operator looks for the combinations of keywords within 5, 10, or 25 words places of each other. 

Narrowing a Search

Use the “Narrow by” options to search only articles, include/exclude book reviews, search for content published during a particular time frame, or in a particular language.

Limit an Article Search to a Specific Discipline(s)

You can focus an article search in specific disciplines and titles using the checkboxes in the discipline list under the "Journal Filter" section. 

Organizing and Filtering Search Results 
The format and display of search results is the same for Basic and Advanced searches.
• Use the options on the left to filter results by journal articles, eBook chapters,
• Use the sorting options to view search results by relevance, oldest items, or newest items.
• Change the “Access level” option to “All Content” to see results across all content on JSTOR, not just the content subscribed to by the library.
• Select citations from the search results and use the "Export Selected Citations" feature to email or export citations in a variety of formats.