USF English Liaisons

Emily Norton - Tampa Library emilynorton@usf.edu

Rhetoric and Composition

Conducting Rhetoric and Composition Research at USF

This guide highlights the resources available at the University of South Florida's Tampa Library for the advanced study of rhetoric and composition.

While many projects benefit from in-depth research in specific journals, database aggregators provide the best means to search across journals efficiently and effectively. Don't write the MLA International Bibliography off as a literature-only resource; it actually indexes many rhetoric and composition journals.

Articles from Discipline-Specific Resources

MLA International Bibliography
Full text access and/or citations to books, book chapters, journal articles, and dissertations about literature, literary theory, folklore and linguistics. Coverage: 1880s-present.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
Abstracts and citations of articles books, dissertations and working papers covering all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, syntax, etc. Coverage from 1973 forward.
Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984
Search this database for information in the humanities and social sciences as far back as 1907. Coverage ends in 1984.

Articles from Resources Related to the Discipline

JSTOR
JSTOR coverage spans a variety of disciplines, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. The included content is comprehensive for archival and historical materials in the collection’s scholarly titles. The most recent 3-5 years of each journal is not available directly via JSTOR, however the USF Libraries provides access to current issues of a majority of these titles in other database and e-journal subscriptions.
Project Muse
Full-text peer-reviewed digital humanities and social sciences content. May not include most recent years.
Taylor & Francis Online
Journals and reference works in the arts, sciences, business, and medicine. Some full-text available.

Articles from Interdisciplinary Resources

When conducting rhetoric research, it is also important to consider resources from allied fields, such as education, cultural studies, technology, and political science. These resources will get you started:

Communication Abstracts
Citation database indexing communication, advertising, marketing, journalism, film studies, and related disciplines from 1977 to the present.
Communication Studies: A SAGE Full-Text Collection
Full-text access to a collection of journals in communication studies published by SAGE and participating societies. Coverage: 1955 to present.
ERIC (Proquest)
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and provides extensive access to education-related literature. Coverage: 1966-current.
GenderWatch
International journals, magazines, newsletters, regional and government publications, special reports, and conference proceedings devoted to women's and gender issues. Coverage: 1970-current.
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Scopus
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings and features tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
Web of Science
The ISI Web of Science provides seamless access to the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. It enables users to search current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 8,500 of the most prestigious, high impact research journals in the world. ISI Web of Science also provides a unique search method, cited reference searching.