General Information on Writing an MSOD Thesis/Dissertation

There are 2 ways to get books through Pepperdine.

The first is by using our university catalog to search for books by visiting http://library.pepperdine.edu

The second is through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). ILL is used to requests books from other lending libraries that your Pepperdine institution does not currently contain.

The screenshot below is of the library.pepperdine.edu home page. The yellow highlighted area is the search bar where you can enter the name, author, or any identifying information, of the title you wish to find. Use this search bar to find books, movies, articles, etc. 

The screenshot below is an example of the results populated when an entry is inputted into the previous screenshots search bar. For this example, I chose to use Harry Potter because I knew it would yield multiple formats. Notice the highlighted areas on the left of the results page. These filtration methods will help you locate the correct resource you were looking for. 

What to do if the book is not on your campus:

If the item you want is not at your home branch library, you can always request the item by clicking on the "Request this Item" button highlighted in yellow on the right side of the screenshot below. Clicking on the "Request this Item" button will take you to a new web screen where you will be allowed to chose your Pepperdine home branch library as the pickup location. Following this step will place a hold on the item for you. 

When searching for books, there are a couple good strategies to start with:

1. If you already have a relevant book or article in hand, use its bibliography to help find other sources;

2. Use the "More like this" link to find other books within your subject area.

3. Think of synonyms or variations on spelling and try and OR search:

• theater OR theatre
• teenager OR adolescents

For some literary research it's important to track a particular author whose name may have varied over the course of his/her lifetime or publication history. In these cases, pay attention to cross-references in the catalog when you do an Author or Subject search for a name. Keep all name variants in mind when you search other catalogs and databases to ensure that you are finding all relevant resources.