COMS 2601 | MacOdrum Library

For academic and news databases, as well as the Omni for books

Develop a search statement
A search statement is a list of keywords, combined using Boolean Operators (AND; OR; NOT)
- AND - this will combine concepts, all of which must be found in your list of results
  - gender AND representation
- OR - either this concept or that concept (or both). This is helpful for generating a list of synonyms. Use synonyms to anticipate the different ways different authors may refer to the same idea. A thesaurus can be helpful for this
  - film OR movie
- NOT - do not include this concept
  - radio NOT podcast
- Quote marks - find specific phrase or name
  - "video game"
  - "shawshank redemption"
- Truncation - any combination of letters to follow
  - canad* - will find Canada, Canadian, Canadian's, etc.
  - sex* - will find sexual, sexuality, sexualism, etc.
- combine one or more of these operators
- put a list of synonyms in brackets
For example, my topic might be to explore the sexualization of female roles in motion picture. My search statement might look something like this:
- sex* AND (female OR women OR girl) AND (film OR movie OR "motion picture")

The Critical Media Project - U.S. focus
Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media
GLAAD - Working for LGBT acceptance in news and entertainment media
- Where We Are on TV (2015-16)
Media Smarts - Canada's Centre for Digital and Media Literacy
Women's Media Centre (WMC) - Amplifying Women's Voices, Changing the Conversation
UNESCO's activities in communication and information by themes

Communication and Mass Media Complete
Gender Studies Database
Scopus
Sociological Abstracts
and don't forget to explore Omni, the search box on the Library's homepage (searches most of our databases and other resources simultaneously)