Research Guides
War and Occupation in Northern Europe (SCAND 445/590 - JSIS A 442): Find articles in databases
Bibliographic Databases
Bibliographic databases collect and organize references to published literature within a particular discipline or in a particular format. The databases below allow searching across a broad range of publications in the disciplines of history and literature. Bibliographic databases are generally the best tool for finding scholarly articles but also include references to non-scholarly articles, books, book chapters, newspaper articles, etc. Links often provide direct access to full text; if not, look up the journal or book title in UW Libraries Search for access.
Subscription Databases
- Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Index to scholarly articles covering world history from 1450 to the present. Includes good coverage of Baltic and Nordic countries and World War II. Specify the historical period using the Historical Period fields below Limit your results on the advanced search screen. - MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive source for scholarship in literature, including coverage of Nordic and Baltic literatures. - Arctic and Antarctic Regions This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Scholarly articles and other material on all aspects of the polar regions, including during the WWII period. - Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Scholarly articles and general interest sources in all fields. Can be useful for broader, interdisciplinary searching.
Google Scholar
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowProvides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles. Use the "Cited by" link to see where the source has been cited in later publications and discover more recent literature on the same topic.
Choosing Keywords
You may not find what you are looking for on your first search. Terminology used in the database, or in the scholarly literature in general, may differ from the first term that comes to mind. Here are some tips for generating better keywords:
- Think of synonyms and alternate terms. For example, synonyms for Winter War may include Russo-Finnish War, Soviet-Finnish War, etc. It can be very helpful to read background information (as in encyclopedias) and to skim abstracts and assigned subject terms in relevant search results.
- Think of more specific terms or related concepts. For example, terms related to resistance may include sabotage, espionage, guerrilla warfare. A concept map can be very helpful for generating related terms.
- Use broader terms to find more sources. For example, for the term Lithuania, a broader term may be Baltic.
Combining Keywords
How you combine keywords is just as important as choosing the keywords. Generally, in a scholarly database, enter separate concepts in different search boxes. For example, if looking for articles on the Danish resistance in World War II, there are three concepts:
- Danish
- resistance
- World War II
These can be expanded with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT). For example:
- Danish OR Denmark
- resistance OR sabotage
- "World War II" OR "World War 1939-1945"