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GWS 495: Selected Topics in Gender and Women’s Studies

This guide is intended to assist students enrolled in GWS 495.

Search Topics

Search Tips

  • Place quotation marks around phrases, names, or titles
  • Use the asterisk symbol (*) at the end of a word to retrieve variant endings of that word
    • ex. femini* will retrieve: feminism, feminine or femininity 
  •  Use a question mark within a word as a wildcard
    • ex. wom?n will retrieve woman or women

Keyword vs Subject Searching

Keyword Searching

  • Your topic itself may prove to be the words that make up your search term(s). 
  • Keywords searches look for that search term(s) in the: 
    • title, subject, author, summary or abstract fields.
  • Keywords found frequently or throughout an article may push that article higher in the search results.
  • Keywords matches do not distinguish between context and purpose.

Subject Searching

  • A subject search will locate materials by Library of Congress Subject Headings, which is a controlled vocabulary or standard list of subject terms. The University Library assigns Library of Congress Subject Headings to all items listed in the online catalog.
  • The number of results may vary widely.  Some searches will retrieve hundreds of results but if you choose a nonexistent subject term while others get nothing.  
  • If you do not know the appropriate subject heading for your topic, conduct a keyword search first and look at the subject heading(s) for relevant items.

Report ADA Problems with Library Services and Resources
https://libguides.csun.edu/GWS495/search-strategies
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