Finding Scholarly Articles

To find scholarly articles on a topic, you will need to use a periodical index. Most of the Libraries' indexes are available as online databases, but in some cases you will need to consult a print index for older materials. Each periodical index focuses on a specific subject area or body of literature. Because most indexes are produced at a national level, they may include many magazines and journals not available at Williams. See below for more information about locating articles at Williams and borrowing from other libraries.

Recommended Databases for RUS 305/COMP 305

MLA International Bibliography (1926-Present)
Index to scholarly literature for language, literature, linguistics and related areas. Published by the Modern Language Association. MLA indexes articles, book chapters, working papers and proceedings.

Beware of alternate spellings for Dostoevsky. Click on Names as Subjects to select spelling from Thesaurus.
Use the Primary Subject Author search from the pull-down menu to get articles about Dostoevsky.
Search for the word "criticism" as Genre (choose GC/Genre Classification from the pull-down menu).

Arts and Humanities Citation Index (1975-Present)
One of three databases included in Web of Science. It indexes scholarly journal articles in the arts and humanities.

Includes text of bibliography for each article.

Essay and General Literature Index (1985-Present )
Index to essays and articles contained in collections of essays and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Covers humanities and social sciences.

Start with a subject search on Dosto* (choose subject from pull-down menu).
Then use the links in the "Narrow Results by Subject" section.
Use FRANCIS to locate books in which essays are published.

American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (1990-Present)
An index to North American scholarship on Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Union that includes journal articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations, and selected government publications published in the United States and Canada.
Good supplementary source but keep in mind that

ABSEES is stronger for social sciences than humanities
References to non-scholarly journals are included

Humanities Abstracts (1980-Present )
Abstracts for scholarly journal articles in the humanities. Covers archaeology, art, architecture, literature, history, music, philosophy and religion.

Start with a subject search on Dosto* (choose subject from pull-down menu).
Then use the links in the "Narrow Results by Subject" section.

Locating Articles

While searching one of the above databases, you will want to determine whether the Williams College Libraries own the journals containing the articles you wish to read.

Many databases have this Find Text icon icon. When you click on the icon in the database, it will attempt to find an electronic version of the text in our collection. If it doesn't find an electronic version, it will give you a screen with a link to FRANCIS and WILL. The FRANCIS link sends a pre-formatted search into FRANCIS to find print or other electronic subscriptions in our collection. The WILL link provides an automatically filled-in interlibrary loan request form to get a copy from another library.

If the database you are using does not have the Find Text icon, you can do a journal title search in FRANCIS. If we do not have an electronic or print subscription, you can submit an interlibrary loan request through WILL.