Contact info

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.

Research process

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 encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks to obtain definitions and overviews of a topic and also to identify key authors

• Bloomsbury handbook of 21st-century feminist theory
• Oxford handbook of comic book studies 
• Routledge companion to comics 
  • Johnson, Michael A. , "Autobiographical Comics" , in The Routledge Companion to Comics ed. Frank Bramlett , Roy T Cook and Aaron Meskin (Abingdon: Routledge, 26 Jul 2016 ), accessed 09 Jan 2023 , Routledge Handbooks Online.
• Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies
• Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminism [2019]
• Routledge handbook to social care work around the world

Find journal articles

Databases let you easily to search for articles from within scholarly journals for a discipline.

• How to find journal articles tutorial. 
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• Women's Studies International -- Start with this database and then search other databases.
• Academic Search Premier -- (multidisciplinary) covers many GSWS journals in full text.Limit your search results to "Academic" or "Scholarly" sources
• Sociological Abstracts - for articles on societal issues
• Ageline - Literature on social gerontology, including articles from journals and magazines, books, research reports, and videos, with a focus on the social, psychological, and economic aspects of middle age and aging.

Database for graphic novels

• Underground & Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels - Covers a wide-range of history and criticism. Includes full-text access to The Comics Journal, as well as interviews, criticism, images, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this art form.
   
  • Note: truncation (*) does NOT work. Instead of searching for "autobiogr*" to find the various endings of the root word, "autobiogr*", spell out the entire word, "autobiography" (278 hits) and also search for other endings such as, "autobiographical" (142 hits)

Find books in the Library

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue: Advanced keyword

For the searches below, you can further limit the search results by "Subject" or "Resource type" (such as "books)

Graphic novels and autobiographical

• autobiograph* AND writing AND "how to" (limited to "Subject" of "authorship")
• graphic novel* OR manga OR comic* 
• (graphic novel* OR manga OR comic*) AND (narrativ* OR authobiograph*)
• graphic novel* OR manga OR comic* AND [your topic words]
• (autobiograph* OR narrative*) AND (represent* OR portray*) AND (colonial* OR imperial* OR capitalism OR patriarch* OR racism OR racist OR heterocentr*)

Motherhood and care work

• "care work"
• (carework* OR "care work*") AND burden
• "care work" AND (family OR families OR "aging parent*" OR child* OR disabili*)
• "care work" AND (memoir* OR "life stor*" OR auto-biograph* OR narrative*)
  • results limited to "books"
• (care OR caring) AND (memoir* OR "life stor*" OR auto-biograph* OR narrative*) 
• "mother*" AND (memoir* OR "life stor*" OR auto-biograph* OR narrative*)
• "home care work*"
• (childcare OR child-care OR "child rearing") AND (responsibil* OR shar* OR burden)

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")

Look at the titles in the "results list" and for those books that look relevant, click on their subject headings.

Selected books

Graphic novels and autobiographical

• Cambridge companion to the graphic novel [print]
• Essential dykes to watch out for
• From comic strips to graphic novels : contributions to the theory and history of graphic narrative
• Graphic subjects : critical essays on autobiography and graphic novels [print]
• How to write an autobiographical novel : essays [print]
• Intersectional Feminist Readings of Comics: Interpreting Gender in Graphic Narratives
• Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American [book on order for library]
• Moonshot : the indigenous comics collection. Volume 2 [print]
• Postcolonial life-writing : culture, politics and self-representation [print]
• Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag [book on order for library]
• Until I Meet My Husband: The Manga [book on order for library]
• Writing gender writing self : memory, memoir and autobiography 
• Yes, I’m Hot In This: The Hilarious Truth about Life in a Hijab [book on order for library]

Motherhood and care work

• Ageing, Care Need and Quality of Life The Perspective of Care Givers and People in Need of Care
• Between interruptions : thirty women tell the truth about motherhood [print]
• Can't we talk about something more pleasant? : a memoir [print] 
• Chicana Motherwork Anthology
• Contemporary Narratives of Ageing, Illness, Care
• Dementia caregivers share their stories : a support group in a book
• Disabling Domesticity
• Disposable domestics : immigrant women workers in the global economy
• Do Men Mother?: Fathering, Care, and Domestic Responsibility
• Feminist political ecology and the economics of care : in search of economic alternatives 
• Hearts of wisdom American women caring for kin, 1850-1940 
• How poetry saved my life : a hustler's memoir [print]
• Letters from Madelyn : chronicles of a caregiver 
• Love's labors : essays on women, equality and dependency
• 'Mother Weight Carried across Borders': Migrant Materiality and the Maternal in Meena Alexander's Fault Lines: A Memoir
• Motherhood and Social Exclusion
• Regretting motherhood : a study [print]
• Remembered rapture : the writer at work [print]
• Respite Care: Caring for the Caregiver
• Shifting Traditions of Childrearing in China: Narratives from Three Generations of Women
• Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers
• Valuing care work : comparative perspectives 
• Writing a woman's life [print]

Selected subject headings to find books

These selected Library of Congress Subject Headings will  assist you with finding books on research methods.  
Use the Browse Search option in the SFU Library Catalogue, then select "Subject" browse from the drop-down menu.

Graphic novels and autobiographical

• Autobiographies as topic
• Graphic novels
• Graphic Novels -- Authorship
• Graphic novels -- Canada
• Graphic novels -- History and criticism
• Graphic novels as topic

Motherhood and care work

• Caregivers
• Fatherhood
• Motherhood
• Sociology of family, youth and aging

Library guides

• Library Research Skills [interactive tutorial]
• What is plagiarism? [guide]
• Evaluating sources
• Referencing and citation management software For help, please contact us at citation-managers@sfu.ca 
• Tutorials
• Student Learning Commons & Writing help

Writing help

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