Up to date academic papers

BigStupidGuy

I'm going to start applying for a musicology PhD (for 2016) and need to find the latest papers on my subject area to draw up a good proposal.

Where do you all go (or where should I go) to find the latest research in your area?

Tom Dunne

Journals. Ideally, you would know the key journals in your field. If not, look up potential supervisors and see where they have published.

Otherwise, the various databases that permit keyword search.

djpbarry

Google scholar as reasonable start. Search for keywords there and see what it throws up.

dyl10

Google Scholar. Find the classic or blockbuster papers for your topic and then follow the citations forward to see what people have been doing over the last few years with those ideas/topics.

BigStupidGuy

Thank you everyone.

Voltex

OP if your planning on a PhD we can assume you have a Masters degree in the subject? Surely you have a basic grasp on where to go for top tier academic literature or what's considered class leading research centres in your field?

BTW I use Google Scholar.

BigStupidGuy

Yes I do have an MA. However my topic was so obscure that it relied heavily on my own field research and didn't involve very much "digging around" on Google.

Tom Dunne

Does Google Scholar link to articles that are not free?

I usually log in via my university website and search journals/databases from there.

Squeeonline

Google scholar links to all articles it can find, free or paywalled.

If you use it from a university IP address you'll be able to access the journals that the university/HEA has subscriptions for, through Scholar. If they don't have the article you'll have to go elsewhere. I suggest trying universities that have a better music programme than your own, and asking people there to get papers for you.

Or if the papers are relatively recent, contact the authors.