UWM Libraries Research and Course Guides: MUSIC 212: History of Western Music 2: 4. Finding Analysis &amp; Interpretation (Books &amp; Articles)

Task #4

Complete the following task, using the tips below. Answer the survey question to let us know how it went!

Locate at least one scholarly book and one scholarly article that offer analysis, commentary, or interpretation related to your topic. These should not be reference sources or popular media articles.

Finding Books and Articles

To find sources that analyze or interpret music, you'll want to look for scholarly books, articles, and dissertations. The easiest way to do this is through Search@UW and the databases provided by the library, which include both physical and online options. The videos below demonstrate how to search for these source types.

Finding Books

Using Databases

Online Books and Articles

JSTOR
JSTOR has thousands of full-text articles and ebooks. By default, the search looks for the search terms anywhere in the full text of the article, not just in the title or summary. For this reason, it's good for finding sources that may mention a particular work somewhere as an example, even if that work is not the main subject.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
For a more exhaustive search of books and articles on your topic, you can search RILM: an international bibliography with summaries of articles, books, dissertations, etc. You can use limiters to get only results in languages you can read. This searches a huge database of titles; we won't have access to all of them, but you can make an Interlibrary Loan request if you find something useful that's not in our collection.