HSS4-N: Samuel Beckett

Here is an entire guide about how to determine whether  a journal is authoritative.

The CRAP Test

Ask yourself the following questions about each website you're considering:

Currency

• How recent is the information?
• Can you locate a date when the page(s) were written/created/updated?
• Does the website appear to update automatically (this could mean no one is actually looking at it)?
• Based on your topic, is it current enough?

Reliability

• What kind of information is included in the website?
• Based on your other research, is it accurate? ...complete?
• Is the content primarily fact, or opinion?
• Is the information balanced, or biased?
• Does the author provide references for quotations and data?
• If there are links, do they work?

Authority

• Can you determine who the author/creator is?
• Is there a way to contact them?
• What are their credentials (education, affiliation, experience, etc.)?
• Is there evidence they're experts on the subject?
• Who is the publisher or sponsor of the site?
• Is this publisher/sponsor reputable?

Purpose / Point of View

• What is the domain (.edu, .org, .com, etc.)? How might that influence the purpose/point of view?
• Is the author presenting fact, or opinion?
• What's the intent of the website (to persuade, to sell you something, etc.)?
• Are there ads on the website? How do they relate to the topic being covered (e.g., an ad for ammuntion next to an article about firearms legislation)?
• Who might benefit from a reader believing this website?
• Based on the writing style, who is the intended audience?

Adapted from Dominican University 

Article Indexes - Available on campus and from home  (see text at right → ).

Humanities Full Text
Covers core periodicals in disciplines such as language and literature, archeology, area studies, classical studies, folklore, history, journalism and communications, religion and philosophy.

• Searching for peer-reviewed journals:  Use the check box on the Advanced Search screen, either before or after running your search.
• Number of current journal titles, as of February 2014: more than 580 total, including 300 with full text. View title list.
• Coverage dates: 1984 to present, for indexing and abstracts.

JSTOR III & V
Full text from scholarly and peer-reviewed journals. JSTOR was designed as an archive, so the searching is limited (no subject searching).  Typically the coverage includes issues from the beginning of each publication up to the Moving Wall, which ranges from one to ten years; so you may not retrieve the very latest scholarship on your topic. Cooper Union subscribes to a subset of JSTOR. For the entire JSTOR archive, you will have to go to NYU's Bobst Library.

• Coverage dates vary by title. Most content is at least 3-5 years old.
• No subject searching; no truncation of search terms.
• Full text: all

Project Muse
A small archive of 180 full-text journals, all peer-reviewed. Can be searched by subject, and contains latest journal issues. For its size, this database includes a lot of information on Queer Theory topics.

• Coverage dates: 1993 to the present.
• Full text: some. Default setting is to only show content the library owns.

Wiley Online Library
Periodicals and books with some content in humanities, art, and architecture, and a strong collection in science. Cooper has access to over 2000 titles with full text.

• Searching scholarly or peer-reviewed sources: A majority of the titles are peer-reviewed. There is no way to limit to peer-reviewed content.
• Full text: most.

Academic OneFile
Multi disciplinary database containing journal articles, transcripts, audio and video of radio and television news; handbooks, factbooks, and reports.

• Searching for peer-reviewed journals: Use the check box on the main search screen.
• Full text:  Much of the content includes full text. Use the check box on the main search screen to limit to full text articles.
• Coverage dates: 1980 to present.

Historical New York Times
Useful for finding contemporary views of Baldwin, and contemporary reviews of his books.

• Coverage dates: 1851-2009.
• Full text: most

Omnifile and Social Science
Articles from around 2,000 journals. Use the "Choose Database" link at the top of the page to include results from the Humanities, Art Index and Social Sciences databases.

• Coverage dates: 1994 to present, for indexing, abstracts and full text.
• Full text: most.

Specialized article indexes like those above  will help you find existing articles on your subject. Some of our article databases provide links directly to the full text;, others provide only citations.

If an article is not available immediately, DON'T GIVE UP YET.  There are several other places you might be able to find that article.

1) Use the SFX link.    or the Find E-Journals link on the Library's home page

2) Search for the journal title in the online catalog. The online catalog will show you both print and electronic copies of journals. If there is an electronic link for another library you have to be at that library to use that resource. If it is only available in print, check which libraries have the years you need, and then go there to make scans or photocopies.

3)  If it is not available in the consortium libraries in any format, check whether it is at NYPL.

4)  It is not available in NYPL, you have the option of getting the article through interlibrary loan. Come talk to a reference librarian, or email me at blumenkr@cooper.edu.

We have an entire research guide on how to execute this process here: http://library.cooper.edu/research/guide_finding_from_cite.html

  The SFX system links an article citation to the full text of the article.  If the Cooper library subscribes to an e-journal or full-text database containing the article, clicking the SFX button will get you directly to the article.

If there is no electronic version available at Cooper, you should search the online catalog for the title of the journal or book containing the article.  You may find a print version available at the Cooper library, or a print or electronic version available at NYU or other consortium libraries.

If you do not find the article source listed in BobCat, please contact your librarians at Cooper Union for help in locating the item

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