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Research Steps

  1. Get a topic, either assigned from your professor or of your own choosing. Eventually this should take the form of a research question, ie, "What is the impact of...," "How did...change..."
  2. Look in general reference resources, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, to get background information. Dates, keywords, important people or ideas will be important as you start to use more subject specific sources and databases.
  3. Look at subject specific reference resources. These will cover your subject in more detail and depth and will include useful bibliographies. For Theatre, this will include resources such as International Dictionary of Theatre and Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance.
  4. Search the library catalog using keywords and terms learned from the reference resources. Look for call number areas and subject headings that cover your topic.
  5. Search in general and subject specific databases for journal articles and book chapters. IIPA and Literature Resource Center are two important databases.
  6. After you have a good background on your topic, use scholarly websites such as Voice of the Shuttle to search for appropriate web resources.

Notes on the Research Process

Remember to write down bibliographic information as you go so that you don't have to go back to find it when you are writing your paper.

You may need to look outside the Theatre subject area to find sources. English, history, religion, art, classics and psychology may all be useful areas for research.

Check the bibliographies in all your sources for additional resources.

You may need to broaden or narrow your topic depending on how much and what type of information you find as you research.

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Online Catalog

Use the online catalog to locate materials in the Reynolds Library on your topic. Search the catalog by author or title in the basic search tab, or by keyword or phrases in the guided keyword search tab.

You will be utilizing resources from a variety of subject areas for this course. Broad categories to look at include: B (philosophy, psychology, religion), GV (dance), M (music), N (art), PN (theatre, film), PR (British literature) and PS (American literature). Some specific call number sections to look at include:

Each book record in the online catalog also contains Library of Congress Subject Headings, which can help you locate books on a similar topic. Click on the subject heading in the online catalog to go to a list of books that share that subject heading. Some examples are:

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Reference Resources

Use Reference Resources to get background information on a person, subject, time period, event, theme or term. Many of these sources include bibliographies which list additional books and journal articles that would be useful for further research on the topic. All Reference materials are shelved on Wilson 4. These are selections from the available resources:

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Reviews

For current reviews, browse the Theater journals in Current Periodicals in the ZSR Library.

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Databases, Indexes, and Bibiographies

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Websites

After you have consulted books and journal articles, you may also want to use web resources. Take a look at Evaluating Web Resources as you evalute the websites you find. Try these sites that contain reliable information rather than starting with Google or Wikipedia!

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Locating Journals

Find out if the Library subscribes to the journal you need through the journals page. If we subscribe to the journal, the catalog will display information regarding print and/or electronic versions of the journal. You can also use the "subject browse" feature to view journals by subject (selected journals only).

Remember, if Reynolds Library doesn't have a journal (or book) you need, request it via Interlibrary Loan. Current periodicals are located in the Periodicals Room, by subject (Art, Music, Literature, etc...) alphabetical by title.

If your professor is requiring you to use scholarly/academic/peer-reviewed journals and articles, and you are not sure what that means, take a look at this chart.

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Need Help?

Good luck in your search! If you are not finding enough information, ASK:

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