Research help

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email (moninder_lalli@sfu.ca) or Ask a librarian.

Essay  

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected handbooks and encyclopedias

Use encyclopedias, handbooks or textbook for overviews, definitions, and to identify key authors or concepts. 

• Global Jihad movement : [a handbook] 
• Handbook of terrorism and counter terrorism post 9/11 
• Handbook on the political economy of war
• International Handbook of War, Torture, and Terrorism
• Oxford handbook of terrorism
• Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy
• Routledge handbook of critical terrorism studies
• Routledge handbook of refugee narratives 
• Routledge handbook of terrorism and counterterrorism
• Routledge Handbook of U.S. Counterterrorism and Irregular Warfare Operations (Edition 1)
• Routledge handbook of war and society : Iraq and Afghanistan 
• Routledge International Handbook of Race, Class and Gender
• World terrorism : an encyclopedia of political violence from ancient times to the post-9/11 era 

Find journal articles

How to find journal articles

Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases below.  From within the database, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request. Limit search results to "academic / scholarly" articles.

Sample searches: 

(afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*) AND (war OR 9/11 OR terror*) AND (oriental* OR racis* OR torture OR abus* OR exploit* OR dehuman*)

(afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*) AND (war OR 9/11 OR terror*) AND (narrat* OR stories OR memoir*)

• Women's Studies International -- Main database for GSWS topics.  Generally, start with this database and then search other databases.
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Academic Search Premier -- (multidisciplinary) covers many GSWS journals in full text.Limit your search results to "Academic" or "Scholarly" sources.
• Political Science Complete - Provides access to journals, reference books, monographs, and conference papers on political topics with a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.
• International Political Science Abstracts - Provides access to abstracts of political science articles published in journals and yearbooks around the world.
• Social Sciences Full Text - similar to Sociological Abstracts, it indexes social sciences journals
• CBCA Complete -- Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA) Complete.  Limit your search results to "Academic" or "Scholarly" sources.

Find books

Library Catalogue search guide

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search

For known items it is best to check using "Browse by title"

Note: In the searches below, you can limit search results to"Resource types" of "Books" and "Book chapters. You can further limit by using "Subject" (left-hand column)

Examples:

• gwot AND (narrative* OR story OR stories OR memoir*)
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND (afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*)
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND (afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*) AND refugee*
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND (afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*) AND (women OR gender OR feminis*)
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND (afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*) AND (memory OR memories OR narrat* OR story OR stories OR memoir*)
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND (omar khadr OR guantanamo OR maher arar)
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND (women OR gender OR feminis*)
• ("war on terror" OR GWOT) AND feminis*
• ( afghan* OR syria* OR iran* OR iraq*) AND ( war OR 9/11 OR terror*) AND (oriental* OR racis* OR torture OR abus* OR exploit* OR dehuman*)

Proper syntax for Boolean logic (words that allow you to combine concepts)

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Selected books and films

• Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror [print]
• Afghanistan remembers : gendered narrations of violence and culinary practices
• Assessing the War on Terror : Western and Middle Eastern perspectives
• Body count : the War on Terror and civilian deaths in Iraq
• Burqa and the Confused Afghan 
• Constructing the terrorist threat : Islamophobia, the media & the War on Terror [film]
• Critical methods in terrorism studies 
• Critique of security [print]
• Cultures of fear a critical reader 
• Dangerous brown men : exploiting sex, violence and feminism in the war on terror [print]
• Detained : Islamic fundamentalist extremism and the war on terror in Canada
• Depicting the veil : transnational sexism and the war on terror
• Detained without cause : Muslims' stories of detention and deportation in America after 9/11 
• Don't forget us here : lost and found at Guantánamo
• (En)gendering the war on terror : war stories and camouflaged politics 
• Feminism and war : confronting US imperialism [print]
• Forever war : dispatches from the War on Terror [print]
• Freedom on the frontlines : Afghan women and the fallacy of liberation
• From victims to suspects : Muslim women since 9/11
• Gender, orientalism, and the "War on Terror" : representation, discourse, and intervention in global politics [print]
• Gendered experiences of genocide : Anfal survivors in Kurdistan-Iraq 
• Genocide, Torture, and Terrorism: Ranking International Crimes and Justifying Humanitarian Intervention
• Good Muslim, bad Muslim : America, the Cold War, and the roots of terror [print]
• Human rights and America's war on terror
• Iraq : genocide by sanctions 
• Iraqi refugees in the United States : the enduring effects of the War on Terror
• Intervention narratives : Afghanistan, the United States, and the Global War on terror [print]
• Islamophobia and Racism in America 
• Islamophobia: Understanding Anti-Muslim Racism Through the Lived Experiences of Muslim Youth
• Islamophobia and the politics of empire : twenty years after 9/11 [print]
• Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War
• Muslim Women, Social Movements and the 'War on Terror' 
• Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism : Unfinished Social Movements 
• Other side of terror : Black women and the culture of US empire 
• Pitfalls of Protection : Gender, Violence, and Power in Afghanistan
• A place outside the law : forgotten voices from Guantanamo [print]
• Political appropriation of the Muslim body : islamophobia, counter-terrorism law and gender
• Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here : The Paradox of Protection in Canada
• Refugees in extended exile : living on the edge 
• Scapegoats of September 11th hate crimes & state crimes in the war on terror 
• Separate and dominate : feminism and racism after the War on Terror [print]
• Shadow lives : the forgotten women of the war on terror 
• South Asian racialization and belonging after 9/11 : masks of threat
• Transnational feminist perspectives on terror in literature and culture
• Voices of resistance : Muslim women on war, faith, and sexuality [print]
• War Against Civilians: Victims of the "War on Terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• What kind of liberation? women and the occupation of Iraq 
• Whitewashed: America’s Invisible Middle Eastern Minority
• With stones in our hands : writings on Muslims, racism, and empire 
• Women in Iraq : the gender impact of international sanctions [print]
• Women of the Afghan War 

Find books by subject headings

Use the Browse Search option in the SFU Library Catalogue.  Select "Subject" (drop-down menu), and change "title" to "subject" 

• Counter-terrorism
• Crimes against humanity
• Islamophobia
• Islamophobia -- United States
• Terrrorism
• War on terrorism
• War on terrorism, 2001-2009
• Women -- Afghanistan
• Women -- Afghanistan -- Social conditions
• Women -- Iran -- Social conditions
• Women -- Iraq
• Women -- Iraq -- Social conditions

Government and NGO publications

• UNHCR - United Nations - Office of the High Commission for Refugees
• Human Rights Watch
• World Vision - Refugees

Search using Google

Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar
Set up Google Scholar library links and button [i.e. "Get@SFU link" within Google Scholar]

Search results limited to words in the title of document, using "intitle:".  Use capital "OR" for synonyms. Put braces "(__ OR__ )" around words with the same meaning (synonyms). "AND" is assumed by Google so you don't need to include it in your search strategy.

• (terrorist OR terrorism OR war) intitle:(iraq OR iran OR syria OR afghanistan) (women OR girls OR gender)

Google's special search engine for publications by international government organizations

NGO Search
NGO Search is a Google Custom Search that searches across hundreds non-governmental organization (NGO) websites. 

• (terrorist OR terrorism OR war) intitle:(iraq OR iran OR syria OR afghanistan) (women OR girls OR gender)

IGO Search - International governmental organizations (IGOs) are organizations made up of more than one national government—examples include NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the WHO (World Heath Organization). The governments are the members. IGO Search is a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) that searches across IGO websites. 

• (terrorist OR terrorism OR war) intitle:(iraq OR iran OR syria OR afghanistan) (women OR girls OR gender)

Library research guides

• Annotated bibliographies
• Library Research Tutorials. Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles.
• Library Catalogue search guide
• Finding articles: Advanced search techniques [video]
• Evaluating sources
• Moving from citation to article: Find the full text of an article from the article citation [guide]
• How to place an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request 
• Search tips for Google and Google Scholar
• Understanding and avoiding plagiarism [interactive tutorial]
• Where can I get this? Citation finder [tool]
• More Tutorials

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.