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Cinema and Television Arts (CTVA): Finding Articles

Finding Articles

There are 3 ways to search for CTVA-related articles:

(1) DATABASES.  Databases are collections of articles & data that the library subscribes to.  We have several databases that specializes in scholarly literature about cinema/film, but also databases providing other info too (newspaper or magazine stories, film industry statistics, etc.)  To see the databases grouped in categories, click the "Choosing Databases" tab above.  To get to the databases from the Library's homepage, click the "Databases" icon, then choose your database alphabetically (A-Z row) or grouped by your major (Subject pull-down menu).

Screenshot of Library Homepage linking to Databases page

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) ONESEARCH.  Although OneSearch is mainly used as the library's book catalog, it can also find articles.  It has a search feature that group-searches many of the library's databases at once. This can be helpful if you are looking for breadth: a lot of articles from a variety of journals.  However, the drawback to OneSearch is that it bombards you with a lot of irrelevant articles, and you have to spend time filtering the results to narrow it down (using the left sidebar "Refine my results").  To get to OneSearch, go the library's homepage, click on OneSearch's "Advanced Search", and choose "Articles" to begin searching.

Screenshot of Library Homepage linking to OneSearch Advanced

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

(3) GOOGLE SCHOLAR. Google Scholar is not a library database, but can still be a helpful tool.  Google Scholar is Google'slogo of Google Scholar
search engine to find scholarly articles.  Sometimes it finds the same articles as in our library databases.  Sometimes it finds articles at educational (.edu) websites.  Sometimes it finds articles at organization (.org) websites.  And so on.  The benefit of Google Scholar is its breadth: it searches millions of websites for articles.  The drawback is: also its breadth.  Many times your results are thousands of articles, with many obscure or irrelevant that aren't a match to what you want.   To see a video demo/tutorial of searching Google Scholar, click here: icon of video play button

Search Tips

Keywords: Type in keywords of what you want (for example: genre and horror).  A list of articles will then come up.  If you see the full-text (a PDF or HTML icon) next to any on the list, great!  You can click and read the full-text immediately.  If no full-text is displayed, then then click on the blue "Find it" button () and a pop-up window will appear referring you to where you can get the full-text.

Subjects: Although using keywords is convenient, keywords can often bring up unrelated articles, since they may appear anywhere in the article.  A more precise way to search is to change your search box to a SUBJECT search, and type a word.  This will look for articles entirely about that word, not just find that word randomly.   For example, an article about Television Censorship, not just an article that has the word "television" and "censorship" somewhere randomly in it. 

Video demos: to view 3 short video demos/tutorials--showing tips & strategies on choosing and searching databases--click here: Icon of video-play button Part1:Intro, Part2:Choosing, Part3:Searching.

About Finding Old/historic Articles

Most of the library's databases provide CTVA-related articles back for several decades.  But what if you want some older/historic articles?  Like a newspaper story from the 1940s about Citizen Kane?  Or a magazine story about I Love Lucy from the 1950s?   Or a scholarly film analysis of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey from the 1970s?   The following resources will help:

DATABASES icon of computer

Magazines: Reader's Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982
Newspaper: Los Angeles Times Historical: 1881-1996 (ProQuest)
Newspaper: New York Times Historical: 1851-2017 (ProQuest)
Journals/Magazines/Newspapers (1976-2001 only): Film Literature Index  

PRINT INDEXES find historical article

These two print indexes tell you what articles were written about films in older decades (1930s, 1940s, etc.).  You consult them, find the journal/magazine/newspaper article about your film, and then find the full-text of that article wherever it exists: microfilm, internet, or Interlibrary loan.  You can find these two print indexes in the library here: 
1973-1994: Film literature Index
1930-1971: Retrospective Index to film periodicals 

CTVA Librarian

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John Hickok
Contact:
657.278.4394
jhickok@fullerton.edu
https://www.library.fullerton.edu/jhickok