Special Thanks
This guide was made in collaboration with the USU Department of English. We want to give special thanks to Cree Taylor, Cana Itchuaqiyaq, and Rachel Quistberg for their help in creating this guide. Their input proved to be invaluable as they shared expertise, resources, and vocabulary that helped frame the content of this guide.
Finding MMU Scholars
MMU authors’ history of exclusion from academia and continued lack of scholarly recognition makes their publications more difficult to find. Search results can easily be filtered in databases by publication date, language, or peer-review; however, there isn’t a filter for MMU authors, so finding these authors often requires some additional searching. Here are some search strategies you can try to help you find work from MMU scholars.
Search Strategies
- Read the author information in database records and journal articles to learn more about the author. If you can’t find much information about the author, go outside the source and search for university profile pages, blogs, social media, and other online projects the author may be involved in.
- Change the order of your search results in databases and search engines. “Relevance" is often the default setting for displaying search results, but you can change it to “Date Newest” to find the most current research available.
- Consider geography/location in your searching.
- Find out where scholars in your field share ideas less formally (such as blogs, Twitter, etc), to find conversations happening outside of traditional forms of scholarly communication.
Tip:
The Merrill-Cazier Library at USU subscribes to Lean Library, a browser plug-in that alerts you when online content is available through the library while you are doing your research both on and off-campus. Lean Library works no matter how you do your research.
- Explore new sources of news. For example, Ethnic News Watch can be used to find publications featuring indigenous voices.
- Explore professional association conference programs, committee lists, and membership rosters to identify scholars and their interests. Some databases even have a filter that allows you to look at conference papers.
- Talk with your professors about how they diversify their reading and reference lists and who they think are exciting new voices in the field.
Some content informed by "Whose Shoulders Are You Standing On? Inclusive Citation Practices in Literature Reviews" by Liz Bellamy (Project CORA 2020).
Places to Search
- ProQuest Central
This link opens in a new window
This is a multidisciplinary collection of articles from scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers and other sources.
Tip:
Need the PDF/full-text?
Use Article Linker to search for full-text across all databases. If the article isn't available, choose Request via ILLiad or use interlibrary loan to request a copy from another library.
- GenderWatchGenderWatch is a full-text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject disciplines. It indexes academic and scholarly journals, newspapers, books, conference proceedings, and government publications.
- Ethnic NewsWatchEthnic, minority, and native presses featuring a rich collection of articles, editorials, columns, and reviews to provide a broad diversity of perspectives and viewpoints.
- Newspaper MapA website that has a map of all the different newspapers in the world, and it will direct you to the translations of international newspapers
- Cite Black AuthorsA searchable, dynamically grown database of work authored by Black academics.
- Finding Diverse Sources for Science StoriesWhile this article is aimed toward journalists, it does contain a list of databases of diverse scientists, diverse scientists on social media, and diverse organizations within STEM you may find useful.
- MMU Scholar ListLists self-identified multiply marginalized and underrepresented scholars (MMU) in technical communication and related fields.
Learn more about MMU Scholarship
- Inclusive Citation: How Diverse Are Your References?A blog post that includes questions to ask yourself about how well you are citing diverse authors. Gives tips and tricks for how to practice inclusive citation.
- ACT UP for Evaluating SourcesExplains the ACT UP method of evaluating sources that allows you to make more room for sources from multiply marginalized and underrepresented scholars in your research.
- Inclusive and Antiracist Writing OverviewExplains how to write inclusively and gives principles of inclusive and antiracist writing. Also offers several resources if you have questions about inclusive and antiracist writing.
- Cite Black Women: A Critical PraxisLists strategies for including works by Black women in research.
- Resources for Racial JusticeThis guide is intended to be a resource for our Utah State University community to better understand issues related to racial justice.
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