LGBTQ Studies: Get Started

Reference sources include encyclopedias, handbooks, and dictionaries.  They are a great place to begin your research, since they can help with the following:

• Offer ideas for possible research topics
• Give you background information on your topic
• Define unfamiliar terms
• Suggest keywords to use when searching for books and articles
• Point you to books and articles on your topic, via "works cited" lists

Browse topic ideas and get background information:

To research and discuss LGBTQ issues it is essential that you familiarize yourself with LGBTQ vocabulary. A great resource to help you with this is the GLAAD Media Reference Guide.

However, it is important to keep in mind that the terminology that is most favored and in use now may not capture historical sources. For example, from Google Trends, we can see that up until about 2012, more people were searching for GLBT on Google than for LGBTQ, which is more in use today.

These search tips work in our library databases and Library Catalog:

• Combine keywords using AND and OR.
  • Use AND for searching different ideas within your topic. E.g. transgender AND homelessness
  • Use OR for searching with synonyms of your keywords. E.g. (trans OR transgender) AND homelessness
• Abbreviate words with multiple endings using an asterisk (*). E.g. homeless* to search both homeless and homelessness
• Search specific phrases using quotation marks. E.g. "Runaway and Homeless Youth Act"
• Change your search terms around to get different results.

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