Research Guides: ARAB 491- Database Searching & Annotated Bibliography (Fall 2025): Finding Scholarly Articles

Welcome

This guide is designed to serve the research and information needs of students in ARAB 491.

If you need help, our AskUs page has FAQs and ways to connect with the University Libraries via chat, email, text, and phone. Feel free to AskUs us directly or schedule a research consultation for additional assistance. Additionally, our Tutorial page can provide excellent starting points for identifying and / or locating resources, developing search strategies, and searching and evaluating sources.

Your Librarian:

Marcella L. McGowan
Learning & Curricular Services Librarian
mcgowan_marcella23@tamu.edu

Finding Scholarly Articles

Arab World Research Source
(1972-present) 700+ full-text resources, including over 600 academic journals. 300+ full-text Arabic-language journals. Nearly 70 full-text country reports. Subjects covered Art, Business, Law, Politics, Religion, History, Sociology and more.
Academic Search Ultimate
A full-text, scholarly database of more than 12,000 journals (10,900 peer-reviewed) in almost every academic discipline. Also includes over 60,000 videos from the Associated Press.
Google Scholar
Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature.
Historical Abstracts with Full Text
Representing scholarship from more than 90 countries, the database includes book citations, dissertations and theses, and coverage extends to related disciplines such as archeology, anthropology and sociology.
PAIS
The PAIS International database contains references to more than 460,000 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, Internet material, and more.
Religion & Philosophy Collection
Index of over 300 journals covering world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy and the history of philosophy.
Gender Studies Database
Gender Studies Database combines NISC's popular Women's Studies International and Men's Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues. Gender Studies Database covers the full spectrum of gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Several thousand links to freely available and indexed full-text articles and documents on the Web are available. Source documents include professional journals, conference papers, books, book chapters, government reports, discussion and working papers, theses & dissertations and other sources.
Access World News Collection
The electronic editions of record for valuable local, regional, and national U.S. newspapers as well as full-text content of key international sources -- all in one easy-to-search database with a world map. Each provides unique coverage of local and regional news, including companies, politics, sports, industries, cultural activities, and people in the community, as well as a distinctive focus offering a variety of viewpoints on local and world issues.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts is building on the merged backfiles of Political Science Abstracts, 1975-2000, and ABC POL SCI, 1984-2000. The database provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and related fields, including international relations, law, and public administration/policy.

Searching Strategies

STEP 1: Break your research question or topic into 2 or 3 keywords
STEP 2: Expand each main keyword concept into a search string consisting of synonyms or the related words. Use Boolean connector OR to string them together.
STEP 3: Use Boolean connector AND to combine all keyword strings together.