Research Guides: Dissertations & Theses: Dissertations & Theses

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Dissertations & Theses

AGRICOLA (Agricultural OnLine Access)
AGRICOLA describes publications, dissertations and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including plant and animal sciences, forestry, entomology, soil and water resources.
America: History and Life
America: History and Life is a very important bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of American Studies. It covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. It includes dissertations, book citations and reviews
CINAHL Complete (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)
CINAHL Complete is the world’s most comprehensive source of full-text for nursing & allied health journals, providing full text for more than 1,300 journals indexed in CINAHL. This authoritative file contains full text for many of the most used journals in the CINAHL index, with no embargo. CINAHL Complete is the definitive research tool for all areas of nursing & allied health literature and supports nursing and allied health professionals, students, educators and researchers.
Access Limited to 20 simultaneous users
Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses (Scholar Works, University of Massachusetts at Boston)
The collection contains open access and campus access dissertations and theses, made possible through Graduate Studies and the University of Massachusetts Boston. The full content of open access dissertations and theses is available to all, although some files may have embargoes placed on them and will be made available as soon as possible. The full content of campus access dissertations and theses is only available to those on the UMass Boston campus.
EconLit with full text
The American Economic Association’s Econlit covers all fields of economics and is international in scope. It indexes journal articles, books, collective volume articles, dissertations, working papers and book reviews from 1969 to the present. Includes coverage of over 400 major journals as well as articles in collected volumes, books, book reviews, and dissertations
Energy Citations Database
Bibliographic records for energy-related scientific and technical information from the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies.
ERIC (EBSCO)
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is a digital library of education research materials sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC is the most comprehensive education database with access to over 1,000 journals.
Historical Abstracts
Abstracts the world’s scholarly literature in history except for the United States and Canada from 1450 to the present. Includes dissertations, book citations and reviews.
Dissertations & Theses: Global Full Text
Dissertations & Theses includes dissertations from 1861 to the present from around the world. It has the full text of most dissertations added since 1997 plus the full text of many older dissertations as well.
ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source
An excellent resource for researchers in nursing, community health sciences, communications disorders and other health-related disciplines. ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source contains over 250 full text nursing and allied health journals. Full text begins in the early to mid 1990's, but indexing goes back to the early 1980's.
PsycINFO
PsycINFO is the major research database in the field of psychology. It covers all areas of psychology as well as psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law. Indexes and abstracts journal articles, book chapters, technical reports, and dissertations and contains over 2.6 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the early 1800s.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale) provides in depth international coverage of the field of music. It indexes a great variety of materials including articles, books, bibliographies, dissertations, films and videos, concert reviews and recording notes. In order to be included the item must have scholarly value.
Scifinder Web
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SciFinder is the knowledgebase of the American Chemical Society, and one of the most powerful knowledgebases in the world.
WorldCat @ UMass Boston
Combined online catalog of over 9,000 libraries customized to connect directly to Healey Library holdings & interlibrary loan (ILL).

Getting a Theses

Once you know of a masters' thesis or PhD dissertation you want to read, how do you get a copy?

Typically, masters' theses and PhD dissertations can be found at the college/university library where the graduate student (author) received his/her degree.

UMass Boston theses are listed in UMBrella. Search the catalog by author, title of thesis, or by typing into the search box exactly this: University of Massachusetts at Boston Theses.

For non-UMass Boston theses & dissertations, just follow these steps:

See if the full text is available through Dissertations & Theses: Global Full Text

If the thesis/dissertation is affiliated with one of the BLC libraries, search UMass Boston WorldCat and then try requesting a copy.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is often your best bet for theses and dissertations. When requesting one, use the Copy Request form and provide as much information as you can.

Sometimes requesting a thesis/dissertation via ILL is unsuccessful. Usually because it is against policy of the lending library to loan their theses/ dissertations. If that's the case, it is possible to purchase a copy at Dissertation Express.