As promised, we're going to dive into some best practices for searching on JSTOR. This'll be a long one!
The first thing to note is that JSTOR is not Google, so searches should not be conducted in the same way.
More on that in this video:
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Basic Search on JSTOR
To search for exact phrases, enclose the words within quotation marks, like "to be or not to be".
To construct a more effective search, utilize Boolean operators, such as "tea trade" AND china.
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Advanced Searching on JSTOR
Utilize the drop-down menus to refine your search parameters, limiting them to the title, author, abstract, or caption text.
Combine search terms using Boolean operators like AND/OR/NOT and NEAR 5/10/25. The NEAR operator finds keyword combinations within 5, 10, or 25 words of each other. It applies only when searching for single keyword combinations, such as "cat NEAR 5 dog," but not for phrases like "domesticated cat" NEAR 5 dog.
Utilize the "Narrow by" options to search for articles exclusively, include/exclude book reviews, narrow your search to a specific time frame or language.
To focus your article search on specific disciplines and titles, select the appropriate checkboxes. Please note that discipline searching is currently limited to journal content, excluding ebooks from the search.
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Finding Content You Have Access To
To discover downloadable articles, chapters, and pamphlets for reading, you have the option to narrow down your search to accessible content. Simply navigate to the Advanced Search page and locate the "Select an access type" feature, which offers the following choices:
All Content will show you all of the relevant search results on JSTOR, regardless of whether or not you can access it.
Content I can access will show you content you can download or read online. This will include Early Journal Content and journals/books publishers have made freely available.
Once you've refined your search, simply select an option that aligns with your needs and discover the most relevant items. Additionally, you have the option to further narrow down your search results after conducting an initial search. Look for this option located below the "access type" checkbox, situated at the bottom left-hand side of the page.
Additional resources
For more search recommendations, feel free to explore this page on JSTOR searching. There, you will find information on truncation, wildcards, and proximity, using fields, and metadata hyperlinks.
Okay, this might be an unpopular opinion, but if you want to combat the spread of misinformation then you have to let go of any belief that people not talking about an issue means that they don’t care. The only way to reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation is to research claims before you spread them, and there is so much information constantly being thrown at people through social media and the 24 hour news cycle that it’s impossible to fact check every claim. The same can be said about AI generated images, if you look closely then you can notice certain tells that something is AI generated but no one really has the time to analyze every single image that crosses their path.
If we expect people to talk about and spread information on every social/political/economic issue that occurs then the result will be that people will spread misinformation/disinformation because they will not have the time or mental capacity to research every single thing that happens on Earth just to make sure that they aren’t being fed incorrect information.
Only researching claims that set off a red flag or seem incorrect doesn’t actually do much to prevent misinformation, because there are plenty of claims that will seem correct on the surface or that will align with your view of the world that you won’t think to research. You have to research every claim if you want to avoid misinformation, and you can’t research every claim made by someone online.
The only solution is to accept that some people aren’t going to talk about certain issues, not because they don’t care, but because they have chosen to focus on other issues for the time being and don’t want to talk about an issue that they don’t know much about. And we really need to stop treating that like a bad thing. If you spread yourself too thin then you’re not going to accomplish anything. It’s actually good to have people devoting themselves to learning about and fighting a specific issue, that’s how progress is made.
the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.