AIS 212 / HSTCMP 212: Indigenous Leaders & Activists: Scholarly Books & Articles

Find Books - UW Libraries Search

Search Tips

For Biographies - Type in your subject's name in quotations. You may want to try both surname first name & the reverse. For example: "frank billy" - "billy frank". You can also try searching for a biographies by indigenous group if you don't have a specific person in mind. For example: maori biography or inuit biography
By Topic - Type in the keywords that broadly describe your topic. For example: ainu identity japan
By Title - search for a specific book by title. Type in the first few words of the book title in quotations. For example: "where the salmon run".
By Author - search for books written by a specific author. Type in the last name followed by the first name of the author in quotations. For example: "reid joshua".

Databases for Finding Articles

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Gale OneFile: Informe Academico This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window

Indigenous Studies Portal

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
PRISMA Publicaciones y Revistas Sociales y Humanisticas This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window

Google Scholar
In order for any fulltext links to work, be sure to link Google Scholar to the UW Libraries:
1. Go to the hamburger menu icon in the upper left.
2. Choose Settings
3. Next choose "Library Links"
4. Type Washington in the Library Links search box
3. Select UW from the list (on the 2nd page of results) and save.

Scholarly Books & Journals as Research Resources

The raison d'être of scholars is to attempt to describe, explain, interpret and analyze issues and events. Scholars use evidence to support their interpretations which are most often published in the form of books and journal articles (secondary sources)?. So why should you use secondary sources?

Strengths

Written by expert scholars. Before publication academic books and articles are vetted by other scholars in a process known as peer review.
Peer review ensures that scholarly books and articles are more reliable and credible than other types of publications.
Provide historical/broader/in depth context and analysis of a topic. For example, if you are researching Shigeru Kayano, you may want to use a scholarly source to get information on the Ainu peoples of Japan.
Scholarly articles and books are based on evidence (primary sources) that are cited in the footnotes and bibliography. They are often a quick way to identify important evidence that you too may wish to use in your research paper. You can use this evidence and present your own interpretation.

Keep in mind

Expert scholars are likely to use specialized terminology and theory in their analyses making scholarly articles and books sometimes difficult to understand.
There are fewer scholarly sources written about less well-known people. There may not be a book-length biography of your subject.

How to Read Scholarly Books & Articles

Scholarly articles and books have a purpose -- an argument (also called a thesis) that they are attempting to make and present evidence to support this argument. As you read a scholarly article first check to see if there is an abstract, a brief overview of the article. This will give you an idea if the article will be relevant for your research. Then look for the author's argument. Ask yourself, does the author adequately support their argument with evidence.

For more information on reading a scholarly article see: How to Read an Academic Article & How to Read a Secondary Source.