Saturday, November 9, 2013

JSTOR Searching

JSTOR Advanced Search for "Melungeon" - 60 results
 

Refined advanced search for "Melungeons" - 150 results


Refined to "Melungeon" and "Appalachia" - 33 results


Best hit: "The Melungeons: A Mixed-Blood Strain of the Southern Appalachians" - Edward T. Price


Content-based thing I learned from an article in this database:  The Melungeons in Scott County, Virginia were "frequently called 'Ramps,'" probably after the term for a type of wild onion known as rampion which is grown and eaten in the spring in that geographic area.

Searching item/tip learned from this type of database:  I'm not sure this is new knowledge but it was very obvious with this database that making a term plural made a huge difference in terms of results.  When searching "Melungeon," I received only 66 hits.  When I pluralized the term, the results more than doubled to 150.  That makes a major difference as far as the information gathered.

The searching process:  JSTOR was one of the most straight-forward, user-friendly databases we used in this class.   The search screen was basic and intuitive and there were no unnecessary "hoops to jump through."  I found lots of relevant results with simple searches from the advanced search screen
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