Guides: MUS 336: Music Education II: 6-12: Find Sources

students reading in front of periodical display

Also known as peer-reviewed articles, scholarly articles are sources that are:

written by experts in the field
reviewed by other experts in the field (hence the peer-reviewed)
intended for an academic audience

While you can find scholarly articles through general search engines, databases contain a feature where you can narrow your results to only scholarly articles.

Find Subject-Specific Articles:

ERIC This link opens in a new window
Articles, research reports, and digests from education-related journals and the U.S. Department of Education.
Professional Development Collection This link opens in a new window
Specialized information designed for educators, professional librarians and education researchers. Includes more than 450 full-text journals, of which nearly 300 are peer-reviewed.
Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window
Offers scholarly perspectives on a wide range of topics: musical concepts, music history, compositional practice, and more. Includes biographies, images, musical examples, and links to audio and video. Includes updated versions of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Oxford Companion to Music.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Naxos Music Library is a comprehensive classical music online streaming library containing titles spanning medieval music to modern, jazz, electronic, world music, pop, rock, and more. It includes compose biographies, glossary of musical terms, opera libretti and synopses, and more.

Find Articles in Multidisciplinary Databases:

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Ultimate offers access to resources cited in key subject indexes. The combination of academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos meets the needs of scholars in virtually every discipline ranging from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more.
Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning. Includes extensive coverage in key subject areas such as biology, chemistry, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology.

M-MT 3rd Floor Stacks Curlib 3rd Floor off Stacks Scores 4th Floor Hallway

Books and eBooks often provide a broader overview and cover more information than a scholarly journal article.

You don't need to read an entire book to use it in your research. Use the index at the back of a book to find the information you need.

To find books and eBooks, you can either:

Search the NOBLE catalog

NOBLE Catalog Search
Search the Jenks Library catalog for books, eBooks, audiobooks, scores, etc.

Browse the stacks for a book related to your topic

Scores 4th Floor Hallway

Scores from well-known composers as well as musicals and other productions are available in the 4th Floor Hallway. You can search within the scores through this link.

Curriculum Library

The Curriculum Library, located off Stack 3, contains music education guides, kits, instruments, and other music related tools to use in your classroom. You can search within the curriculum library through this link.

M-MT 3rd Floor Stacks

M 1-5000 - Music

M 5-1480 Instrumental Music
M 1495-2199 Vocal Music

ML 1-3930 - Literature on Music

ML 159-3785 History & Criticism
ML 3790-3792 Music trade
ML 3795 Music as a profession
ML 3797-3799.5 Music Research
ML 3928-39230 Literature for Children

MT 1-960 Instruction & Study

MT 170-810 Instrumental techniques
MT 820-915 Singing and vocal techniques
MT 918-948 School Music
MT 955-956 Musical theater

For a detailed list of the subclasses in the Music section, see the LC Classification Guide for M.

Education Books

Conveniently located right next to the music section is the general section on Education. These books are in the L-LT section.

Quick Way to Cite

Screenshot of Cite box on EBSCO database showing a formatted MLA citation that you can copy and paste

If you found an article on a database, look for the Cite button to get a formatted citation for your Works Cited, in less time than it takes for EasyBib to load.

MLA Works Cited & In-Text Citations

Works Cited Format	Author. "Title." Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs and/or URL, DOI or permalink).
1 Author	Brennan, Mylie. “Dungeons & Dragons and Damsels in Distress: A Visual Rhetorical Critique of The Dungeon Master’s Guide.” Women & Language, vol. 43, no. 2, Fall 2020, pp. 223–51. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.34036/WL.2020.021.
2 Authors	Wang, Yichen, and Xiaofei Hao. “Virtual Nexus: Female Players’ Emotional Attachment in a Role-Playing Video Game.” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 28, no. 2, Apr. 2022, pp. 488–505. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221089212.
3+ Authors	Domahidi, Emese, et al. “A Longitudinal Analysis of Gaming- and Non-Gaming-Related Friendships and Social Support among Social Online Game Players.” Media Psychology, vol. 21, no. 2, Apr. 2018, pp. 288–307. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1257393.

In-text Citation Format	Format	Example
1 Author	(Author's Family Name Location).	(Brennan 225).
2 Authors	(Family Name and Family Name Location).	(Wang and Hao 500).
3+ Authors	(Family Name et al. Location).	(Domahidi et al. 290).

APA Works Cited & In-Text Citations

Works Cited Format	Author. "Title." Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs and/or URL, DOI or permalink).
1 Author	Brennan, M. (2020). Dungeons & Dragons and Damsels in Distress: A Visual Rhetorical Critique of The Dungeon Master’s Guide. Women & Language, 43(2), 223–251. https://doi.org/10.34036/WL.2020.021
2 Authors	Wang, Y., & Hao, X. (2022). Virtual nexus: Female players’ emotional attachment in a role-playing video game. Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 28(2), 488–505. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221089212
3+ Authors	Domahidi, E., Breuer, J., Kowert, R., Festl, R., & Quandt, T. (2018). A Longitudinal Analysis of Gaming- and Non-Gaming-Related Friendships and Social Support among Social Online Game Players. Media Psychology, 21(2), 288–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1257393

In-text Citation Format	Format	Example
1 Author	(Author's Family Name Date).	(Brennan 2020).
2 Authors	(Family Name and Family Name Date).	(Wang and Hao 2022).
3+ Authors	(Family Name et al. Date).	(Domahidi et al. 2018).

Download Zotero
Step 1: Download the app from Zotero.org.
Step 2: Add the Zotero Connector to your preferred web browser.
Step 3: Register for a Zotero account.
Step 4: Adjust preferences settings in the app.

Forming your Search String

The more complicated your question, the less likely a search engine can understand it. To get the best result, identify keywords and like terms to create a search string.

Example research question: How do music teachers incorporate popular music into lesson plans?

Keywords: Music teachers, popular music, lesson plans

Like terms can include synonyms and also examples of your keywords. If you don't get results from searching your keywords, it doesn't mean that the research doesn't exist. It could mean that the researcher used different language to describe the same topic

Music teachers: music learning, music education, music class
Popular music: pop music, well-known music, Taylor Swift
Lesson plans: curriculum

Search strings connect your keywords and like terms together for the best results.

Too many results? Use AND to narrow results

music teachers AND popular music AND lesson plans

Too few results? Use OR to broaden results

music teachers OR music education AND popular music OR "Taylor Swift" AND lesson plans OR curriculum

If you find an article or book that you can't access, don't pay for it! Instead, submit an Interlibrary Loan request, and you'll receive articles within a few days!

Interlibrary Loan: Article & Book Request
Can't find the article or book you're looking for at Gordon? Fill out the Interlibrary Loan request form and we'll track the article or book down for you!

Are you looking for a specific article, like an article that you found referenced in a bibliography? Search for the journal in Journal Finder, linked below:

Browse Journal Finder
Find individual journals and search within specific publications.