FAQ

How should I get started on my library research?

The Research Librarians are eager to assist you with your research projects. Before beginning a project involving library research, please feel free to come by in person or contact us.

In addition, McFarlin provides a number of subject-related research guides that are available online 24-7. These guides identify and briefly describe most of the major research tools that students in various majors may be expected to use in the course of a research project. If the resource is online, a link is provided. If it is an offline (print) resource, a call number is provided. The guides are part of the Library's Instruction Program. If you have any questions about the research guides, please contact Lisa Grimes, the Student Success Librarian, at 918-631-5401 or lisa-grimes@utulsa.edu. Please consult the Instruction Services LibGuide for additional information.

Where can I find magazine and journal articles on my research topic?

There are a few different ways to find articles published in periodicals (either magazines or journals). You can:

• Search the journal List if you know which publication you'd like to look through. (Many of our periodicals are available online, however we do have some in print and on microform.)
• Check our research guides for help finding articles on a specific subject.
• Search our database list.

How do I find book reviews?

 To find a book review, it helps to know the original date of publication.  This is especially true if you want to use the two print sources dedicated specifically to locating book reviews.  These are:

In both sources, begin searching for reviews in the year the book was published, then work forward through the more recent years.  Ask at the Library Service Desk for assistance.

Please note: Although our holdings of the Book Review Index and the Book Review Digest end in the early 2000s, these resources are primarily useful for locating older book reviews (1990s and earlier).

Check either the library catalog or WorldCat to get the original publication date.

To locate published collections of book reviews in McFarlin Library, search the following terms on the catalog:

A good source for locating book reviews online is EBSCOhost.  The EBSCOhost databases may provide you with access to book reviews published in scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers since about 1990.

TIP : When searching for book reviews on EBSCOhost, search for the title or author of the book combined with the term "book review".  Contact the Library Service Desk if you need assistance.

Many other sources are available for locating book reviews during different time periods and in various disciplines.  If you can't find a review you need, please Ask Us!  The librarians will be able to suggest other places to look for a review of your book.

How do I cite my sources in a research paper?

 A guide on citing in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian is available here.

The Helen N. Wallace Writing Center, located on the third floor of McFarlin Library, will also be happy to assist you in writing a paper, including citing sources. Please contact them at 631-3131 or make an appointment.

I have some journal citations, but the journal name is abbreviated. How can I find out what the abbreviation stands for?

 Many bibliographies and indexes (especially print indexes) use abbreviations when citing the title of a journal in which an item appeared. This is generally done to conserve space. In most cases a "key", or list of abbreviations used, appears in the front or the back of the book.

Online databases generally do not use abbreviations in this way, although there are exceptions. You may want to try JournalSeek.

If you have an abbreviated title and can't figure out what the full title is, Ask Us!

I need to do research on a specific company. Where should I look?

McFarlin Library offers numerous databases, as well as books, newspapers, and journals, that will help you track down information on most companies. A list of the major library business databases is available on the McFarlin Business LibGuide.

For additional information, please Ask Us!

Does McFarlin Library have any citation indexes?

McFarlin Library subscribes to Scopus, an online abstract and citation index. (A citation index is an index to the bibliographies of journal articles. Using a citation index you can determine who has cited a particular work in later research.