AFAM 150: Understanding Race, Antiracism, and Intersectionality (Jones)

For your reflection on Passing by Nella Larsen, you need to find a secondary source which supports your examination of the representations of racism, antiracism, and/or intersectionality in the novel.

This guide provides suggestions for library resources that will be helpful to you.

If you have questions, visit the Ask a Librarian page and chat with us!

Use the Advanced Search option in OneSearch to combine a variety of concepts and synonyms together in a single search.  Use the CHOP, DROP, and OR technique for maximum efficiency.

Sample search:

On the Results page, you may choose to use the limiters on the left of the screen to refine your results to articles or books, or to narrow in other ways.

To get an MLA citation for a source, look for the quotations icon.

Clicking there will bring up a window, prompting you to choose your citation format.  Choose MLA from the drop-down menu.

And then use your mouse to highlight the citation and copy-paste it into your work.

Because citation generators are not guaranteed to produce perfect citations, you need to double-check the formatting.  The links in the MLA Citation box on this guide are resources you can use.

Here is an example of how you might construct a search on the topic of "identity" in Nella Larsen's novel Passing:

You can get a citation to an article by clicking on the "Cite" button. 

Then choose the "Copy" button by the MLA citation, and paste it into your document.

Because citation generators are not guaranteed to produce perfect citations, you need to double-check the formatting.  The links in the MLA Citation box on this guide are resources you can use.

America: History & Life allows you to place specific date limiters on your search (a feature not available in other databases).  And because all of the articles in the database have something to do with history, we don't have to search for that term.

First, type in your search terms.  Here's a sample search:

Next, to specify the time period you want to focus on, look for the Filters option below the search boxes.  Here's how you would specify that you wanted to find writings which discuss the decades between 1920 and 1950:

Then click search and your results will be limited to articles which deal with that specific time period.

To get an MLA citation for a source, from the results page, look to the right of the article you're interested in. Click on the vertical ellipsis, which brings up a Tools box with "Cite" at the top.

Under "Select style," scroll down to MLA, choose "Copy to clipboard," and paste it into your work.

Because citation generators are not guaranteed to produce perfect citations, you need to double-check the formatting.  The links in the MLA Citation box on this guide are resources you can use.

When looking for the full-text of an article, if you don't see "Access now," click on "Access options," and then choose "Find It @ Ball State."  It will try to connect you with the full article.