More Guides: Women in STEM
Databases and Search Engines for Further Study of Women in STEM
Access to these databases is through Wayne State University Library. They are recommended for researching women in STEM:
Education Databases (EBSCOHost)
Also recommended:
Citation & Author Searching for Further Study
Did you find an article on this guide and you want to find more articles on the same topic? A good way to look for additional sources is to do some citation searching, which is a research strategy that helps you find sources from other sources.
Forward Citation Search: Start with an article that you like. How many researchers have cited that article since its publication? This search looks forward in time to see how this article contributed to the scholarly conversation.
- Look up the article by title in Google Scholar. Look for a link that says "Cited by xxxx" and click on it. Look through the list of articles to see if you can find more articles that are similar to the topic of the original article.
- Common databases that will also include "cited by" links include EBSCOHost databases, Web of Science, and Scopus.
Backward Citation Search: Start with an article that you like. Go to the end of the article to see a list of references. All of those references were cited in the article. This search looks backwards in time to see what led to the research in the current article.
Author Citation Search: Researchers usually focus on a narrow area of research. If you find a good article on a specific topic by a person or group, look for other articles that they wrote. Do they have a Google Scholar page that lists all of their publications? [Example]
Subject Headings (Library of Congress)
Academic libraries in the U.S. use Library of Congress subject headings. The Library of Congress offers a guide on how to search library catalogs using subject headings specific to women in science.
For example, using our library catalog's advanced search, this is how you can use Library of Congress subject headings to do a search:
A note on search terms:
Throughout this guide, we use common and Library of Congress standardized search terms that can help you locate relevant sources. These terms (used in headers, titles, abstracts, and descriptions of sources) may imply different meanings to different people.
When conducting and presenting your research, you get to decide what terms to use and how to define them. Being aware that the context of common/standardized terms can help you frame your topic in a way that feels accurate and respectful to you.
Statistics on Women in STEM
Science and Engineering Indicators. Provides reports, tables, topics, and indicators by state. Indicators are prepared under the guidance of the National Science Board by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES).
The State of Girls and Women in STEM
The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) provides an infographic titled "State of Girls and women in STEM" that touches on a number of topics covered in this guide. Go to this page and find the button to "Download the PDF" document. The references at the bottom of the document may offer good leads on where to get statistics on girls and women in STEM. Learn more about the NGCP.
More Books
Women in Field Biology: A Journey into Nature by
Women are contributing to disciplines once the sole domain of men. Field biology has been no different. The history of women field biologists, embedded in a history largely made and recorded by men, has never been written. Compilations of biographies have been assembled, but the narrative-their story-has never been told. In part, this is because many expressed their passion for nature as writers, artists, collectors, and educators during eras when women were excluded from the male-centric world of natural history and science. The history of women field biologists is intertwined with men's changing views of female intellect and with increasing educational opportunities available to women. Given the preponderance of today's professional female ecologists, animal behaviorists, systematists, conservation biologists, wildlife biologists, restoration ecologists, and natural historians, it is time to tell this story-the challenges and hardships they faced and still face, and the prominent role they have played and increasingly play in understanding our natural world. For a broader perspective, we profile selected European women field biologists, but our primary focus is the journey of women field biologists in North America. Each woman highlighted here followed a unique path. For some, personal wealth facilitated their work; some worked alongside their husbands. Many served as invisible assistants to men, receiving little or no recognition. Others were mavericks who carried out pioneering studies and whose published works are still read and valued today. All served as inspiration and proved to the women who would follow that women are as capable as men at studying nature in nature. Their legacy lives on today. The 75 female field biologists interviewed for this book are further testament that women have the intellect, stamina, and passion for fieldwork.
Publication Date: 2023: CRC Press
To the Stars: Women Spacefarer's Legacy by
This book is the second edition of Women Spacefarers and tells the fascinating stories of the valiant women who broke down barriers to join the space program. Beginning with the orbital flight of USSR cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and continuing to the present day, it covers the many female players who have had a central role in the greatest adventure of our time. The book includes the biographies of, and in some cases interviews with, the brave women who have flown in space. For each entry, the author contextualizes the spacefarer's accomplishments in light of the political and cultural climate of the time. The second edition features fifteen additional profiles on figures such as Jessica Meir and Wally Funk; new interview material; a new thematic structure based on each woman's science specialty and role; an expanded glossary; and more. The result is a gallery of pioneering women who reached for the stars: women who,with exceptional skill, hard work, and dedication, reached impressive careers as accomplished pilots, researchers, engineers and managers, and left a legacy of strength for all aspiring spacefarers.
Publication Date: 2023: Springer
Women in Game Development: Breaking the Glass Level-cap by
From programmers to artists, designers to producers, female videogame developers endure not only the pressures of their jobs but also epic levels of harassment and hostility. This book gives voice to talented and experienced female game developers from a variety of backgrounds, letting them share the passion that drives them to keep making games.
Publication Date: 2019
Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral, and Getting It Done by
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2017. Perfect for aspiring coders everywhere. Girl Code is the story of two teenage tech phenoms who met at Girls Who Code summer camp, teamed up to create a viral video game, and ended up becoming world famous.
Call Number: Available through MeLCatPublication Date: 2018
Women in Microbiology by
Each story is unique, but each woman featured in Women in Microbiology has done so much to expand our knowledge of the natural world while also making it easier for the next generation of scientists to work collaboratively and in an atmosphere where people are judged by their intellect, imagination, skill, and commitment to service regardless of gender or race.
Publication Date: 2018
Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing by
The untold history of women and computing: how pioneering women succeeded in a field shaped by gender biases. Today, women earn a relatively low percentage of computer science degrees and hold proportionately few technical computing jobs. Meanwhile, the stereotype of the male "computer geek" seems to be everywhere in popular culture. Few people know that women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing in both the United States and Britain. Indeed, programming in postwar years was considered woman's work (perhaps in contrast to the more manly task of building the computers themselves). In Recoding Gender, Janet Abbate explores the untold history of women in computer science and programming from the Second World War to the late twentieth century. Demonstrating how gender has shaped the culture of computing, she offers a valuable historical perspective on today's concerns over women's underrepresentation in the field. Abbate describes the experiences of women who worked with the earliest electronic digital computers: Colossus, the wartime codebreaking computer at Bletchley Park outside London, and the American ENIAC, developed to calculate ballistics. She examines postwar methods for recruiting programmers, and the 1960s redefinition of programming as the more masculine "software engineering." She describes the social and business innovations of two early software entrepreneurs, Elsie Shutt and Stephanie Shirley; and she examines the career paths of women in academic computer science. Abbate's account of the bold and creative strategies of women who loved computing work, excelled at it, and forged successful careers will provide inspiration for those working to change gendered computing culture.
Publication Date: 2012: MIT Press
