INTL 360U Bollywood: Communicating Contemporary South Asia through Cinema: Introduction

This guide is designed to assist you in gathering resources for your Intl 360U final paper, which will require refereed sources. 
To help you find the ten refereed books and journal articles you'll need, the guide provides information on:

• Finding Background Information
• Finding e-Books
• Finding Articles
• Database Search Techniques
• Citation
• Annotated Bibliography
• Assigned Films

If you need assistance finding additional materials, the guide includes information on contacting the library for personalized assistance.

What are Refereed Sources?

The internet is flooded with information sources, some trustworthy, others decidedly not.
In academic publishing, refereed sources are materials that have passed through an exhaustive review process.
This guide highlights 3 types of scholarly sources:
1) General overviews that provide background information (See "Background Information")
2) E-books produced by reputable publishers (See "Finding e-books")
3) Academic journal articles (see "finding articles")

Each resource type has a different purpose, which will dictate when you use each.
 

General overviews provide a big picture summary of your topic. They are a great starting point because it gives you the "Big Ideas" on your topic.  A general overview, for example, is a book like Bollywood Cinema, which discuss the whole topic of Bollywood.
 

E-books (also called scholarly monographs) are more detailed, and will focus on a topic in more detail. Once you have a topic, and want to learn more about that specific idea, this will be your next stop. As an example, the book Young Muslim women in India : Bollywood, identity and changing youth culture goes into detail when discussing the topic of women in Bollywood, while a general work on Bollywood will not.
 

Articles tend to be very detailed, but narrow in scope. Typically you will move on to articles after you have a very specific question. As an example, the question "how are Sikhs depicted in Bollywood Cinema?" is too specific for a book to cover, but this is exactly the type of issue an article would examine.

This video shows you different ways to check whether an article is peer-reviewed. 

• Contact a librarian 24/7 using our chat services.
• Email questions will receive a response in one business day.
• You can get help in person at the research help desk, 1st floor of the Library these days and times. 

When you have a research assignment , note what types of articles are required evidence for your thesis or question. Some professors require you to use only scholarly peer-reviewed journals while others might allow professional or trade journals and newspapers.

Scholarly article - Peer-reviewed or scholarly articles are written by an expert or scholar in the field and reviewed by peers who are experts in the same subject.

Professional/trade article - Trade or professional journals have articles written by experts in the field or by staff writers. The articles are reviewed by the editor. The articlesusually do not include reference lists.

Popular journals - Popular journals or magazines are written for a general audience rather than for professionals or scholars. Examples include the New Yorker, National Geographic, and the Rolling Stone.