Jane Austen Society of North America Journals

  • The Jane Austen Society of North American publishes two Jane Austen journals. One is print and the other is online.

  • The print version is called Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal and it can be found on the society website: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/index.html. Some of the issues have links to full text (some issues specifically state "Full text available," but some issues only have one or two full text articles available, which is evident once you click on the issue). Some of the issues can be searched with keywords.

  • The online version is called Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal On-line which can be found at http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/index.html. The full text is available by clicking on the issue name (V.xx), the "Table of Contents for Persuasions On-Line Volume xx, No. x," and then the article name. Also, articles can be searched by keyword.

  • The journals are peer-reviewed and cover a variety of topics related specifically to Jane Austen.

 

EBSCO's Academic Search Premier Database

  • This is a good starting point for research and information.

  • Go to www.lfpl.org, click on "Research Tools," then "Literature," and the link for Academic Search Premier is listed first.

  • Subject Headings. Here are some sample subject headings that you can search with (just type them in the main box and click "Search"):

  • Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

  • Pride & Prejudice (Book)

  • Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (Book)

  • Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 - Characters

  • Emma (Book)

  • Sense & Sensibility (Book)

  • To find more, click on "Subject Terms" on the blue bar that goes across the top of the Ebsco screen. You can search subjects or people. For example, if you click on "People" and then search "Austen, Jane," other subject headings relating to Jane Austen will come up.

  • Subject headings are a precise way to search, but they don't always retrieve all of the relevant documents. You may find that you want to search for a topic that doesn't have a matching subject heading in Ebsco. In that case, you might decide to combine subject headings or try a keyword search.

  • Keywords. When conducting a keyword search, your keywords will depend on what information you want to find. Examples:

  • Jane Austen

  • Austen's book titles (Emma, etc.)

  • Regency England

  • British/English literature

  • Biography

  • Characters

  • Movies

  • Search strings combine keywords. Sometimes they are connected with Boolean terms like AND, OR, NOT. Examples:

  • Jane Austen AND biography

  • Jane Austen AND characters

  • Pride and Prejudice movie

  • Jane Austen criticisms

  • Other search tips:

  • If you click on "Advanced Search," you can select from a variety of search options.

  • One says "Full Text." If you click this, then you will only get full text articles in your search results. Otherwise, you might receive abstracts or articles the library does not have. However, a librarian can help you find these.

  • You can also choose to retrieve only scholarly articles, and you can choose a date range for articles.

  • For more information about Jane Austen's life, books and websites might be more appropriate. Many journal articles tend to be critical (in that they analyze her books or very specific aspects of her life) instead of providing basic or general background information. They also are often very specific in scope.