Women's & Gender Studies

1. Check the journal name. Sometimes these explicitly include "Feminist" or “Women” or "Gender” especially in the subtitle (e.g. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice), however, there are journals that don’t have explicit terminology in their name. Women's studies and gender studies research is published in related or interdisciplinary fields, such as sociology; in this case, you can look at the journal’s website to see the scope of the journal's coverage.
2. Check the subject terms assigned to the article by the database (to ensure the use of terms relevant to women and gender studies. You can find these in the record for the article.
3. Check the author’s institutional affiliation (whether they are working in women's studies, gender studies or a related department).
4. Look for the presence and use of feminist perspectives as well as for the use of feminist theories and methodologies.
5. Look at the subject area of the author for terms like feminist, women studies, gender studies, queer studies etc.

Based on a checklist for recognizing sociological work by Dr. Sandra Colavecchia, Greg Neapen, and Jennifer Easter -

Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice/Études critiques sur le genre, la culture, et la justice sociale,formerly Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal / Revue d'etudes sur les femmes is a scholarly research journal devoted to critical work in a variety of formats that reflects current scholarship and approaches to the discipline of Women's and Gender Studies. It incorporates a diversity of feminist, anti-racist and critical identity, intersectional, transnational, and cultural studies approaches to a wide range of contemporary issues, topics, and knowledges. Atlantis is dedicated to the ongoing growth of knowledge in the field of Women's and Gender Studies, as well as to critical reflections on the field itself.

Search effectively!

• When searching databases, use the advanced search window so that you can combine concepts effectively.
• Take a moment to ensure that you have good search terms, by checking the thesaurus or subjects listed with each item.
• Make sure that you are doing the 'type' of search you want, i.e., author, subject, keyword, etc.
• Don't forget to try new strategies: if your search isn't working, try new terms, new combinations of terms, and new types of searches.
• When in doubt, ask a librarian.

If you are unsure whether an article is available in full text or not, please click on the 'Check for full text...' link closest to the citation to check if the full text is available at MSVU. The 'Check for full text...' link will check to see if the article is available in another database, or to see if the library has a copy of the article in print. If the article is not available at MSVU please look at our document delivery options.