Background or "reference" sources are a great place to start your research. Reference works include bibliographies, scholarly encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and other sources that provide overviews of topics and suggestions for further reading.

Oxford Bibliographies
An extensive collection of annotated bibliographies. Examples of potentially helpful articles:

"Embodiment" by Anna Harris (Anthropology module)

"Intersectionalities" by Judith A. Howard (Sociology module)

"Non-normative Sexuality Studies" by Ahonaa Roy (Sociology module)

"LGBT Social Movements" by Amy L. Stone and Sarah Davis (Sociology module)

"Transgender Media Studies" by matthew heinz (Communication module)

Cambridge Companions

These are edited books with multiple authors and offer useful introductions to topics, themes, and artists. For instance, in The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction, several authors discuss the work of Samuel R. Delany.

Oxford Handbooks Online
Chapters in the Oxford Handbooks usually provide helpful overviews of topics, reviews of the scholarly literature, and suggestions for further reading. Examples of potentially useful volumes include the The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory and The Oxford Handbook of American Women's and Gender History.

Wiley Online Library
This resource includes scholarly journal articles and monographs as well as reference works. Often a single chapter or two within a reference work can provide a helpful starting point for research. For instance, in the Companion to Women's and Gender Studies, chapters such as "Masculinities Studies" by Melanie Lee and "Trans Studies" by Cristina Khan and Kolbe Franklin provide overviews of the scholarship in the field, followed by long lists of references.

The following databases will be helpful for finding citations to, and often the full-text of, scholarly journal articles. They will also include citations to magazines, newspapers, and books. Please note: The full text of articles will not always be available in these databases. If you see the "Yale Links" icon instead of a PDF, click on it to discover whether we have access to the article: 

And, don’t forget, Orbis, Books+ and Articles+ are all useful tools for finding sources too.

James Kessenides, Librarian for African American Studies and History

Jana Krentz, Librarian for Latinx Studies

Jennifer Snow, Librarian for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Sociology

Click here for more information about accessing Yale-licensed resources remotely.