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Rites of Passage

Resources for both PSY and SOC courses researching various cultural rites of passage such as birth, marriage, and death.

Search for Articles, E-books, and More

Once you have read through your background information and have identified some keywords and phrases related to your more specific topic, you can begin to look for magazine and journal articles found in library databases. 
 

Summon Search

Search Options | Summon Help

Search Examples

Use the following examples as a guide for what to type in the Summon search box:

  • "rites of passage"
  • "rites of passage" AND Asia
  • Islamic AND marriage customs
  • rites and ceremonies
  • birth rituals
  • adolescence AND rituals
  • death AND rituals AND China

Once you have a list of results, use the options in the side bar to refine your results by date, type of resource, subject, etc.

General vs. Specific Keywords

  • You could start with a more general search phrase such as:
    • "Native Americans" AND "rites of passage"
  • To focus on a particular tribe and rite, make your search terms more specific:
    • Apache AND "Sunrise Dance"

Refine the Results List

You might also consider using the tools available to make your search results more manageable. Look for tools that allow you to view only scholarly or academic journal articles, or that allow you to view just the articles that were published in the past few years. 

Search Individual Databases

Since Summon doesn't search everything, you may want to look through the complete list of databases.