An introduction to JSTOR for high school students focusing on the content, features, and research tools available on the platform.

1. INTRODUCTION TO JSTOR
Education & Outreach – JSTOR
October 2019

2. TODAY’S
PRESENTATION
1. What is JSTOR?
What content is available?
1. How to use JSTOR
2. Additional resources

3. JSTOR is an online library of
trusted academic research. It
includes thousands of
journals, ebooks, and primary
sources.
What is JSTOR?

4. To learn more about using JSTOR effectively… try our free
Research Guides: guides.jstor.org

5. JSTOR for High Schools
High schools have access to multidisciplinary journal and primary
source collections on JSTOR.
Academic Journals and
Ebooks in 75 subject areas
• More than 2,600 academic
journals
• Over 5000 scholarly
monographs
Primary Sources
• 19th Century British Pamphlets
(26, 000 pamphlets on various
subjects)

6. JSTOR Journal Collections
• Historical content: includes the full history of each journal’s
publication from volume 1 up to a few years from the present.
• JSTOR digitizes the “full runs” of each journal: research articles +
editorials, book reviews, and all other parts of the journal.
• IB and AP Capstone students can use JSTOR to find high quality
research for extended essays.
• JSTOR is commonly used at most major colleges and universities.

7. Peer-reviewed content in more than 75 subjects
Area Studies Arts
Business and Economics
Health Sciences
History Language & Literature
Law
Philosophy
Religion
Science and Mathematics
Social Sciences

8. What is “peer
reviewed”
research?
Peer review means
that a group of
subject experts have
evaluated the article
for academic quality
and publication
standards.

9. JSTOR is a reliable
source for scholarly
research
Nearly all of the journals
collected in JSTOR are
peer-reviewed
publications, but JSTOR
also contains primary
sources and content that is
much older than today's
standard peer-review
process.

10. Primary Source Collections in JSTOR
19th Century British
Pamphlets
Search 25,976 items in 9 collections
Struggles for Freedom:
Southern Africa
Search 10,081 items in 56 collections
South Asia Open
Archives (SAOA)
Search 6,744 items in 4 collections

11. Primary Sources:
19th Century British Pamphlets
• 26,000 pamphlets that highlight the political, social, and
economic issues of the British Empire.
• An important means of public debate in the 19th century.
• You can use the pamphlets to find contemporary opinions,
important debates, and details about social conditions that
provide interesting context to 19th century research.

12. 2016, Girls’ Globe1898 pamphlet, Millicent Garrett Fawcett

13. Many authors and
public figures
published pamphlets

14. Journals also republish primary
sources Letter from Charles Darwin to William Ogle, about
Aristotle

15. Browse Subjects
Browsing the subject list on
JSTOR is a good way to
survey the key journal titles
available.
www.jstor.org/subjects

16. Searching
Basic search tips:
• Place words within quotation marks to search for exact phrases. (“to be or
not to be”)
• Use Boolean operators (AND, OR) to combine terms
• Search for spelling variations (labor or labour)
www.jstor.org
"protest songs" AND “civil rights"

17. Searching Advanced search tips:
• Use the drop down
menus to search within
specific fields (title,
author)
• Use Boolean operators
(AND, OR) to combine
terms
• Use the ”Narrow By”
options to focus your
search
www.jstor.org/action/showAdvancedSearch

18. Help with
Searching
See “How to
Search JSTOR”
(guides.jstor.org/h
owto-search) for
detailed searching
help.

19. Read online
full screen
Download
PDF
Article URL
Reading and
citing content

20. Cite this item
Citing
content
Selecting the “Cite This
Item” link will open a
window with pre-formatted
citations that can be
copied and pasted

21. Organize Your
Research
Saving an item to your
“Workspace” provides
the ability to store and
organize citations for
items on JSTOR and
save links to content on
the internet.
SaveSave

22. Workspace

23. JSTOR’s two-minute video on Workspace

24. Strategies for Research on JSTOR
To understand the context for your
topic, try a general search on your
topic, then:
• Look in abstracts for related
keywords
• Use the linked topics that show in
your search results and repeat that
search under a topic
• Note how many results you get
• Note the publication date range of
relevant results
Reflect on the results you find. If you’re still
not finding enough relevant content:
• Try using Text Analyzer with an
article close to what you are looking for
• Put an encyclopedia entry through Text
Analyzer
• Discuss with your librarian or
teacher other possible key words you
could use in your search

25. Additional Strategies for Research on JSTOR
Reflect on the results you find. If you’re
still not finding enough relevant
content:
• Try searching for alternate terms
• Your topic may be too recent –
content may not cover it yet
• Your topic may be in a discipline not
as deeply covered by JSTOR (hard
sciences, medicine, for example)
To find influential authors and
related research:
• Look at the cited works to find
related research
• Search for the title of an article and
look for articles that cite that
work
• To find other perspectives, search
for articles that include “Comment
on <article title>” or “Response to
<article title>”

26. Text Analyzer

27. JSTOR’s two-minute video on Text Analyzer

28. Other content high schools can access:
JSTOR Global Plants plants.jstor.org

29. Other content high schools can access:
World Heritage Sites - Africa aluka.org/heritage

30. Research Basics
https://guides.jstor.org/researchbasics

31. JSTOR Daily
daily.jstor.org (or from the
footer on any page in
JSTOR)
Search the Daily to learn
more about a topic and
then read the scholarly
article cited by the author.

32. JSTOR Understanding Series
www.jstor.org/understand

33. Get Help with
JSTOR
• Ask your teacher & school librarian
• Use the Research Guides:
guides.jstor.org
• Contact JSTOR Support:
support@jstor.org

34. We hope you enjoy your research!