LESSON 4 - Periodical Indexes and Abstracts
While your background research in subject encyclopedias has given you good information on your query for the effects of slavery on emancipated slaves and subsequent generations, you may wint to find more current information. Where can you go for the most recent research? Are periodicals your answer? Isn't the latest information reported in newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals? All these publication types, usually called periodicals, are reviewed, indexed and abstracted in a number of different databases. If you recall the indexing process we covered in Module II, you understand something of the process of indexing and abstracting. Remember the concept of controlled vocabulary? Different databases have different lists of subject headings or descriptors.
Periodical Indexes and Abstracts
What will determine which databases you will search? This depends on the subject focus of the database and whether you need scholarly or general information. Additional considerations may be whether the information can be provided in full-text online.
