These databases are the first resources to try when searching for secondary, scholarly articles about topics related to the medieval period.
Description: JSTOR allows you to search across approximately 2,000 journal titles from more than 50 disciplines. It contains complete backfiles of scholarly journals starting with the first issues, many of which date back from the 1800s. Although the majority of titles do not have the most recent 3 to 5 years available in full text, there are some which have the current issues available.
Note: Additional content has been permanently added to JSTOR, including archived journal collections and primary resources. Searches performed using the databases page link will include results from the additional sources, as will the link above.
Time Period: 19th century to present
Sources: Provides the full text for approximately 2,000 journals.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Mobile, Music, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Citations, Journal Articles, Reviews
Description: Historical Abstracts indexes articles that cover world history from the 15th century forward, including military history, women's history, and the history of education. The database includes some linked full text and searches can be limited to articles about a specified historical period.
Time Period: 1914 to present
Sources: Indexes more than 1,800 journals and provides the full text for more than 475 journal titles.
Subject Headings: History, Mobile, Social Sciences
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Dissertation and Theses, Journal Articles, Reviews
Number of Simultaneous Users: 6
Description: Project Muse is a full text database of journals in disciplines such as art, literature, history, political science, and economics. Some full text will come from JSTOR, in PDF format.
Time Period: 1993 to present
Sources: Indexes more than 300 journals.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, English & Linguistics, History, Humanities, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology
Primary Materials: Books/e-books, Citations, Journal Articles
These databases are additional places to search for secondary, scholarly articles about topics related to the medieval period.
Description: Good database for most research topics and contains lots of full text and peer reviewed articles.
Time Period: 1909 to present
Sources: Indexes nearly 20,000 Academic and peer reviewed journals and magazines and provides full text for more than 5,700.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Music, News, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Case Studies, Citations, Conference Papers, Images, Journal Articles, Magazine Articles, News, Other, Reviews
Description: Sociological Abstracts provides access to U.S. and international literature on sociology and related disciplines and may be useful for research in social work and women and gender studies.
Time Period: 1952 to present
Sources: Indexes more than 1,800 journals.
Subject Headings: Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Social Sciences (Sociology)
Primary Materials: Journal Articles, Dissertations and Theses, Books, Conference Papers
Description: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) allows you to see who has cited who/ what in any of the most cited 3,000 journals in the social sciences. It also allows you to search for articles on topics.
Time Period: 1956 to present
Sources: 1
Subject Headings: Education, English & Linguistics, History, Humanities, Law, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Social Sciences
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Citations
Description: Social Sciences Full Text covers the latest concepts, theories and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences, this full-text resource provides access to the most important English-language social science journals. Indexes more than 700 peer reviewed journals.
Time Period: 1972 to present
Sources: Indexes more than 770 periodicals and provides full text for more than 330.
Subject Headings: Business, Education, History, Psychology, Social Sciences
Primary Materials: Journal Articles
Scholars sometimes post information about their research online, often within the websites of the universities and colleges where they work.
You can search for web pages of that sort using Google Advanced Search. You can access it here:
Enter search terms that represent your topic in one or more of the boxes at the top of the page labelled "all these words," "this exact word or phrase," and/or "any of these words."
Then, to limit your search to pages within college and university websites, type "*.edu" (without quotation marks) in the "site or domain" box below.
Run your search. When choosing results, pay attention to who the authors of the pages are. If a faculty member or academic department is credited with authorship of the page, it is likely something that could be considered scholarly. If a student, student organization, or non-academic department created the page, it might not be scholarly.