MC 7021 Mass Communication Theory: Finding Diverse Sources
Helpful Evaluation Tools
- Belcher Citation Values FormFrom Writing your journal article in twelve weeks : a guide to academic publishing success by Wendy Laura Belcher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2019.
- Finding Diverse Voices InfoGuide (from George Mason University Libraries)Strategies and resources on searching for and highlighting diverse voices in scholarship.
Finding Underrepresented Voices
- Cite Black ScholarsCite Black Scholars seeks to enhance recognition and citation of Black academic voices with a searchable, dynamically grown database of work authored by Black academics.
- SheSourceWMC (Women's Media Center) SheSource is an online database of media-experienced women experts who they connect to journalists, bookers and producers looking for sources. WMC SheSource makes it easier for journalists to include diverse women’s voices across all topics in their news coverage.
*Scholars are included in the searchable database.
The links below were compiled by Brittany O'Neill, humanities and social sciences librarian. Check out the WGS 2500 Research Guide (Introduction to Women's & Gender Studies) for more resources.
- Women Also Know StuffWomen Also Know Stuff promotes the work of women for political science through a searchable database of women experts in the field.
- People of Color Also Know StuffPeople of Color Also Know Stuff provides a directory of experts of color in political science. Their mission is to promote scholars of color in Political Science and serve as an amplifier for efforts to advance racial diversity and inclusion in the discipline. They aim to advance equity that is inclusive of all class backgrounds, gender identities, sexual identities, and institutional contexts.
- LGBT Scholars NetworkA twitter feed highlighting the work of LGBTQ+ scholars across disciplines.
- Cite Black WomenThe Cite Black Women Collective is a campaign to push people to engage in a radical praxis of citation that acknowledges and honors Black women’s transnational intellectual production. You can follow their podcast and blog, as well as the hashtag #citeblackwomen on Twitter, to find black women's contributions to scholarship.
- Black Latinas Know CollectiveA collective of Black Latina scholars producing innovative knowledge about race within Latinidad and Blackness. The website lists members of the Collective and shares scholarship on their blog and social media.
- Women also know historyOur searchable website makes it easier to identify and connect with women historians working in a wide range of fields and professional settings.
Use a Citation Index to find more recent articles
If you find a helpful article, it's a good idea to look at the sources that article cites to identify other, earlier articles that may be relevant to your research.
A citation index allows you to find later articles (and in some cases book chapters) that cite an earlier article. In other words, if you find an article you are very interested in, you can look up the article in a citation index to identify later articles that list that original article in their references. These articles will often be related to the topic of the original article; a citation index can lead you to newer articles on a related topic.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is one of the easiest tools to use as a citation index. Note: If you aren't authenticated through MyLSU, Google Scholar will not recognize you as being affiliated with the university, and these articles won't be available as full text directly in Google Scholar.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. While this resource is convenient, researchers should know that Google indexes as much scholarly content as possible, so it can sometimes return results from predatory journals. Click here for information on how to identify a predatory journal.