JSTOR

Introduction
This full-text database includes core research journals in a wide variety of academic disciplines. While most library databases begin periodical coverage in the early 1980's, JSTOR provides complete back-runs of journals sometimes going back to the early 1900's.

To find it, click on "Databases" on the library’s home page, then click on JSTOR.

Home Screen

The JSTOR Home Screen is the Basic Search. Above the Basic Search box there are three tabs. They are Basic Search, Advanced Search, and Article Locator. We will look at each of these search types. Above these three tabs we see additional tabs next to the red JSTOR logo. They include Search, Browse, About, Participate, Resources, and MyJSTOR. You will see these same tabs at the top of every JSTOR screen.

Browse: Journals
If you click on Browse, you will see a drop down list of three choices. You can browse by Discipline, by Title, and by Publisher. Let's browse by Discipline.

Now we see an alphabetical list of disciplines starting with African American Studies. There are 10 titles available for that discipline. From here, we can choose to search another discipline or scroll down the page to view all disciplines. Since we are in an English class, let's click on the drop down box and choose Language & Literature as our discipline.

Now we see a list of 19 titles for Language & Literature.

Beside each title we see the dates of JSTOR coverage. Next to that we see links to Recent Content. These links take us out of JSTOR and into the Project Muse database. We will look at Project Muse in a later chapter. For now, let's focus on JSTOR coverage and click on the journal, American Literature.

Now we are viewing the publication information for American Literature. We see that JSTOR covers this journal from 1929-1999. From here, we can browse the journal year by year, starting with 1929. When we click on a year, we then view a list of issues for that year. Choosing an issue, we can then view the table of contents for that issue.

Basic Search Screen
Now let's do a search. Click on the Search tab at the top of the screen. First, let's do the Basic search.

Here is the Basic search screen with our author already entered in the search box. Notice that, when searching for a person's name, such as Ernest Hemingway, it is not necessary to capitalize the name or separate the last and first name with a comma. Also, it does not matter whether you search for Ernest Hemingway or Hemingway Ernest. The results will be the same. Let's go ahead and do a Basic search for Ernest Hemingway now.

Basic Search Results

Here we see a list of 988 full-text articles. Results are shown 25 at a time. At the bottom of the results list you see a red arrow. Click on this arrow to view 25 more results.

At the top of the results list, you see three folder tabs. They are: Articles, Images from Articles, and ARTstor Images. The Articles tab is the default, and those are the results we are viewing. If we switch to Images from Articles, we find that there are three articles which include pictures. The last tab takes us to the Artstor database, but does not allow us to access any Artstor content. This is a separate database, for which we do not have a subscription, so you can ignore that tab.

Just below these folder tabs, you see a drop down sort box. You can sort by relevance, publication date, or journal title. The default is to sort by relevance, and that is how you are viewing the results now.

If you look through the results list, you will notice that most of them come from a journal titled American Literature. Currently, this journal is available in JSTOR from the beginning of publication in 1929 until 1999.  Each year, more issues are added. The most recent issues of this journal are available in the Project MUSE database. We will look at Project MUSE in the next chapter.

When an article is available through JSTOR, you will see the title highlighted and underlined in blue. Of the first 25 articles, only the first one is not. However, if you look underneath the bibliographic information for the article, you find the words, Link to Article. This is a link to the full text article through the Project MUSE database.

If you examine these results closely, you will notice that almost half of them are book reviews. Article #2 is a book review. Let's look at it more closely. Click on the link labeled "Review: [untitled]."

Book Review

On this screen we see a full-text book review from the journal, American Literature. The book being reviewed is My Brother, Ernest Hemingway. The book is not full-text here, only the review is. We do not have access to the book. If we check the book catalog, we find that is it is not not one owned by Brown Library. This will be the case for the majority of the book reviews in JSTOR. However, if you find a book reviewed in JSTOR that you would like to read, you may order it through our interlibrary loan service. For more information, visit the Brown Library home page and click on the "Interlibrary Loan" link.

Advanced Search Screen
When we did the Basic search, we found 988 articles. That is a lot of articles. Mixed in those results, we found that several were book reviews, rather than actual critical articles. This time, let's do an Advanced search and see how we can limit our results.

Now we come to the Advanced search screen. Here you see four search boxes. Next to each search box, there is a drop down menu, which includes a list of fields. You can search the full-text of an article, or you can limit your search to the author, title, abstract, or caption fields. For now, let's keep the full-text option. In the first search box, enter your search terms, Hemingway Ernest.

Underneath the four search boxes you have additional options for limiting your search. You can limit by article Type, Date Range, Article Language or by journal Discipline. Article types are: Article, Review, Editorial, and Other. You can choose one or more types to search for. For now, let's limit to Type: Article.

Advanced Search: Article Results

This time when we search, we find 209 articles instead of the original 988. That is because we have eliminated the book reviews, editorials, and other types of articles. Let's look at the fourth article. To do that, click on the article title, highlighted and underlined in red.

Full Text Article

Now we are viewing the full-text of an article titled "Ernest Hemingway's Morality in Action." At the top of the article, we see the article page numbers. They are 372-385.

Article Printing
As we have learned in previous chapters of this handbook, always format your articles for printing. On the right side of the screen you see a PDF icon. Click there to format your article for printing.

On the screen below you see a cover page for the article. This cover page shows all the information you need to cite the article, including the title, author, journal, date, pages, and database information.

On the screen below we see the first page of the article.

Article Locator
Now let's go back to the search screen so we can look at Article Locator. To go back, simply close the PDF window.

Now click on article locator

Now we are on the Article Locator screen. You can use the Article Locator to find specific articles. These might be articles that you have viewed before and wish to find again, or they might be articles referred to by someone else you know. You can search for the article by Article Title, Author, or by Journal. If you search by journal, you can specify the title, volume, issue number, and date.

For now, let's do a search by Article Title, looking for the article we found previously in the Advanced Search. The title of the article is "Ernest Hemingway's Morality in Action."

Here we have one result. It is the article we are looking for.

MLA Citation
Here is a sample MLA citation for an article found in the JSTOR database.

Colvert, James B. "Hemingway's Morality in Action." American Literature 27.3 (1955): 372-385. JSTOR. Virginia Western Community Coll., Brown Lib., Roanoke. 16 May 2008 <http://www.jstor.org/search/>.