LLBA - Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts

Open UNM Library website

in another browser window to work through this tutorial side by side.

Accessing LLBA

LLBA (Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts) is a subscription library database that is focused on journals and scholarly sources in linguistics. It's a great place to start a search for articles related to linguistics.  

This tutorial will help you practice searching in LLBA.

Starting at the UNM Library homepage (https://library.unm.edu) in the window on the right, let's navigate to LLBA from the UNM Library homepage...

to do this, click on the DATABASES box, and then when the Find Databases by Title box pops up, click on the letter L.  

Getting to the LLBA Advanced Search Screen

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A list of the databases starting with the letter L will display. Scroll down to notice the link to LLBA-Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts.

BUT for the tutorial, use this link instead.

Note: if you are OFF CAMPUS you will then be prompted to enter your UNM netid & password.  If you are on campus you will go straight into the database.

Getting to the LLBA Advanced Search Screen

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When you get into LLBA, if you are not already in the ADVANCED search page, click on the link labeled "Advanced Search" to get to it. (You will know if you are in the Advanced Search page because "Advanced Search" will be written in large letters at the top of the page.)

Using Advanced Search

By using the limits on the Advanced Search page we can focus our search.

Let's say we want to find articles in scholarly journals about the linguistic concept of negation. 

Follow the directions below to craft your search.

1) Enter the keyword NEGATION in the search box.

2) Click on the Limit to: Peer reviewed checkbox in order to limit to peer-reviewed publications.

3) In the MORE SEARCH OPTIONS section....

  • We only want to search in scholarly journals (not books or other types of resources), so in the SOURCE TYPE section click on the box next to SCHOLARLY JOURNALS. 
  • We only want articles, so in the DOCUMENT TYPE section, click on the box next to ARTICLE.  This will exclude things like book reviews that may also appear in these scholarly journals.
  • We only want articles written in English, so in the LANGUAGE section click on the box next to ENGLISH. 
    • Note this limit helps because LLBA includes articles in many languages and all have English abstracts but you unless you speak other languages you won't be able to read the actual article.
    • However, in a comprehensive literature review you would want to know about articles on your topic even if they were in a language you could not read.  So, when doing your own literature searching in the future you may or may not want to check this box.   
4) After you have entered your search term and set the search limits above, click the SEARCH button. 

Note that it is also possible to limit by date.

Understanding Search Results

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How many results did you get?

Understanding Search Results

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Wow - that's a lot of search results!  Let's say you now realize that you need to focus your search. As you are a linguist and expert Chinese speaker, you have decided to narrow your topic to the concept of negation in Chinese. 

How would you limit your initial search results to focus on articles that are about negation AND the Chinese language?


Understanding Search Results

3 of 4Now let's do what we just discussed.  

Add the word CHINESE to the search box (keep the word NEGATION in the search box and all of your parameters the same) and click on the search button to re-execute your search.

This should change your results list to have approximately 500 items.   

Scanning these you think that the article entitled, Negation in French-Chinese, German-Chinese and English-Chinese Interlanguages by Boping Yuan (usually in the top 10 of the search results), looks interesting.

Click on the title OR the "Abstract/Details" link to view more information about this entry.

Understanding Search Results

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One thing to pay attention to in an entry are the SUBJECTS assigned to an article.  Subjects use a controlled vocabulary to help group concepts together. If you want to find more related articles, you might note some of the subjects assigned to this article and try searching for them later.  Take a look at the subjects assigned to this article...

Which one of the terms below has NOT been assigned as a SUBJECT to this article?

Finding the Full-text

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After reading the abstract and looking at the Subjects, you think you want to read the full article.  To determine if UNM Library has access to this article, click on the FIND@UNM button  ( ) in the record to your right (sometimes in this tutorial you need to expand your browser window to see ths link on the left side of the screen). 

This will open a new tab in your browser.  You will need to navigate back to this tab to continue with the tutorial instructions. 

Finding the Full-text

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The new tab that opens includes a UNM Library webpage with links to the article (if UNM has access to the article).  

UNM does have access to this specific article.  

Click on the VIEW FULL TEXT LINK. This will open another new tab and take you to the publisher's webpage for this article. (Again, you will have to navigate back to this tab to continue the tutorial.)

Send Liz Cooper, the Linguistics Librarian, a link to this page by clicking on the SHARE icon (on the right side of the screen) and enter her email address, cooperliz@unm.edu, in the TO field and click SEND. 

Finding the Full-text

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While you are still in the tab with the publisher's webpage for the article, click on the PDF link, and the PDF should display. 

Look at the article...

On what page of the article does the References list begin?

 

Remember that looking at the References section of a good article is one of your best tools for finding other good articles.  Articles cited in an article you like can be very useful -- and you can search for them in the library catalog. 

Similarly, looking at the CITING LITERATURE section will show you articles that have cited this one -- and these can also be useful.

Now from this tab (the tab with the tutorial and the LLBA record describing the article), let's go back to the list of search results by clicking on the BROWSER'S BACK BUTTON.

Finding the Full-text

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From the results list, let's look at another entry: On the Functions of Three Forms of Negation in Chinese by Miao-Ling Hsieh (usually in the top 20 of the search results list). 

Let's say we think that this title looks good and we want to check if UNM has this item.  Click on the FIND@UNM button () and look at the library holdings page that displays. (Note that this will open in a new tab -- you will have to navigate back to this tab to continue with the tutorial.)

Does UNM Library have a copy of this article?

 

 

Check your answer - and remember that even if UNM Library does not own an article, we can most probably obtain it for you (at no cost) from another library via our Interlibrary Loan service (usually accessed by clicking on the button labeled "Request It." Most articles can be obtained within 48 hours but most books take approximately one week.

 

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