ANTH 172: Anthropology of Aging (Grace)

This guide is designed to help you find sources for your annotated bibliography.

What this guide covers 

1. How to  choose an subject specific article database for research, the basics of how to use an article database to find relevant articles, and why it is recommended that you use article databases rather than relying solely on a "Google search" or whichever browser you use.

What is an "article database?"

An article database is a collection of digitized articles, typically from many different newspapers, magazines, and journals that are searchable in various ways, such as by keyword, title, author, subject, etc.

Some article databases are discipline specific, for example Anthropology Plus has articles only from, or primarily from, anthropology journals. Other article databases cover more than one discipline, for example Humanities Full Text, and some article databases cover a broad range of academic disciplines from Anthropology to Zoology, for example Academic Search Complete. 

2. Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry.

3. Searching for documents, information, statistics, analysis, data, etc., is a strategic, iterative exploration and rarely straightforward, requiring the evaluation of a range of information sources and the mental flexibility to pursue alternate paths as new understanding develops.

This guide includes a series of brief videos on the research process that are worth your time to watch because what they have to teach you will save you time once you start the research process. However, If you find you are already familiar with the material in a video then, of course, move on to the next.