IPHS 114: Odyssey of West: Reason and Revolt

Defining and Refining a Topic

Suggested Strategy #1: Browse Reference Sources, Brainstorm Key Terms and Ideas
Make lists of concepts and topics you find interesting while browsing these reference sources, as well as lists of related words and synonyms. Just getting started? Check out the below reference works.

Suggested Strategy #2: Draw a concept map to organize your brainstorming.
Capturing the relationships between concepts you've drawn out of your own interests or the above reference sources, you may be able to narrow your topic and select what the most important aspects of it are.

View PDF of Class Handout

Finding Books

CONSORT Online Catalog
The combined catalog of Denison University, Kenyon College, Ohio Wesylan University and College of Wooster. Find Kenyon items here, or request items from Denison (approx. 1 day delivery time) or Ohio Wesleyan or the College of Wooster (approx. 2-5 days delivery time).

OhioLINK Online Catalog
The statewide catalog of over 70 libraries. Request items from all over the state with a delivery time of anywhere between 3 and 7 days.

Finding Scholarly Journal Articles

CONSORT and OhioLINK don't contain information about individual articles within journals and don't always contain information about articles in anthologies or other book-format collections. Search an index or database to find citations to articles or, in many cases, the full text of the articles themselves.

When you've identified a promising article that isn't available fulltext online, check CONSORT to determine if Kenyon holds the journal that you need. (Remember to search by the journal title, not the title of the article.) If Kenyon doesn't own the journal, use the Interlibrary Loan Request Form to request a photocopy of the article.

Try These First for Articles from All Disciplines

Academic Search Premier
This database provides full-text access to scholarly publications from nearly all areas of academic study, including the humanities, languages and linguistics, arts and literature, social sciences, education, computer sciences, engineering, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.

JSTOR
Provides access to the full content of a variety of scholarly journals. Coverage generally begins with volume one of a journal, and ends 2-5 years from the present. Journals may be browsed or searched.

OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center
Includes the full text of approximately 2,500 journals. Most relevant titles will be found in the Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities categories. Subject categories covered include Fine and Performing Arts, History, Humanities, Language and Literature.

For Resources on Art

For Resources on Music

For Resources on Literature

For Resources on History

For Resources on Religion

For Resources on Philosophy

Annotated Bibliographies

How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography, from Cornell University

Annotated Bibliographies, from University of Wisconsin-Madison

Off-Campus Access to Resources