Resources for Wind and Percussion Pedagogy: Finding articles on learning

Frequently Used Resources (in order of relevance)

Finding articles can be a challenge. Here are some tips/tricks for you. 

First of all, understand that you have to use a consistent style to refer to journal articles (and scores, recordings, books, etc.) in your writing. For this course, you will be using Turabian (also known as Chicago) style. Purdue University's writing center has a terrific guide to make understanding and using Chiacao easier.

Another aspect of Chicago style is that you will also need to use the formatting guidelines for your papers -- how to label tables, how to create headers. Your professor will tell you more about how rigorous this will be applied for your assignments, but be aware there's more to Turabian/Chicago style than just how to cite a journal article!

Preparing to search

Before you start searching for journal articles, think about your topic. What do you know about your topic? What words or terms would you use to describe your idea? Do you have broader or narrower terminology for your topic?

For example

• clarinet repertoire
• reed repertoire
• wind repertoire

Which is the narrowest (most specific) term? Which is the broadest? 

What about these terms?

• elementary school
• pre-adolescent children
• childhood
• K-6

While these terms refer to the same general age range, different resources will use specific terminology to apply to articles -- and that terminology may not be the same as the terms you've searched. 

Why not just search Google Scholar or that OneSearch thingy for everything?

Great question! Do you use a sledgehammer when a regular hammer will help you hang a photo in your room? Sometimes you need both, but you've got to plan for it!

The resources listed below are music education and education specific -- with the exception of PsycAPA. The subject terms (or thesaurus, or descriptors, or index terms) used to describe and classify articles (etc.) are going to those appropriate for that field of study. 

Finding the actual article -- the full text

Here's when Google Scholar can come in handy. If you find a citation and the full-text links aren't available or just aren't cooperating, use Google Scholar with FSU full-text links and search for the article title. This special link should help you get to the article.

This link does not work so well for electronic books (or ebooks). You may want to use OneSearch (which really is not one search to rule them all, but that's a different conversation).