It can be intimidating to start conducting research in Mandarin. There are so many types of sources and when Mandarin is not your native language it can be challenging to quickly identify which sources are legitimate, well-regarded, and the most useful for your research. Most professors will assign research papers throughout the semester, so knowing how to utilize the HNC library and its resources from the get-go, as well as having a basic understanding of the Chinese online academic research landscape, can help save time and frustration. This post offers an in-depth overview of library research resources and tips for navigating useful Chinese databases. Future students are encouraged to use this post as a guide.
Overview of Accessing Library Resources at the HNC
The HNC library is located on the third and fourth floors of the Samuel Pollard building and hosts an impressive collection of both English and Chinese journals and books, separated by section. The library also has a special website just for the HNC campus where you can search the HNC library catalogue for books, journals, newspapers, and previous masters’ theses. The Nanjing University library catalogue is available for books and journals, and the JHU library website is a great option for English-language journal articles and online access books. The HNC and NJU library websites also have access to dissertations, conferences, papers, patent documents, government publications (both US and Chinese), etc.
On the NJU library website, you can also utilize the specific tabs for research and support “学习&研究支持” (xuéxí&yánjiū zhīchí) and for lectures and training materials provided by NJU professors “讲座和培训学习资料” (jiǎngzuò hé péixùn xuéxí zīliào). There are also PDF and PPT presentations made by Nanjing Librarians on utilizing specific websites for quality academic research.
Finding Academically Recognized Chinese Online Sources Using CNKI
Chinese sources are plentiful, but only a few are from well-cited and reputable journals! Well-regarded, online journal articles are available for research papers using CNKI. CNKI is like the Chinese version of google scholar and Wikipedia all in one. Full access to the CNKI website is provided to all HNC students, allowing them to download PDFs of articles for free with academic access. It's also possible to create a personal account to save all sources within the system, which is extremely helpful for future reference! An advanced search function is also available, allowing you to fill out your search parameters in Mandarin with the topic, author, title, etc. Another helpful tip when using this advanced search is to refine your search using logical operators like AND 与, OR 或, NOT 非 to narrow the search by including or excluding keywords. (yǔ, huò, fēi respectively)
For Reputable Articles from China’s Top Universities and Journals: Make sure to click the 北大核心 and CSSCI buttons on the bottom panel of the search bar to narrow the search parameters to only look for these reputable, well-cited articles. The bottom tabs narrow the search between journal articles, legal cases, meetings, books, etc. Journal articles are the 学术期刊 tab (xuéshù qíkān).
Once you have created and submitted a search request, you can see different analyses of your search results by clicking on the bar graph of each search criteria in the left-hand tab. This will provide you information such as how well cited the literature is, what years have the most publications, and what authors/disciplines of the sources provided are most popular. You can also set the search to frame results by newest, author, topic, etc.
Once you find an article you’re looking for, you can save it to your profile so you can cite it later, another extremely useful function! Within your personal CNKI account, you can organize your articles into folders for each research paper, topic, or class. Additionally, through the NJU library system you can sign up to use CNKI’s AI assistant to help with source retrieval and reading.
Additional Online Resources
HNC librarians have also recommended using the Renmin University photocopied newspaper and periodical materials database “人大复印报刊资料” (réndà fùyìn bàokān zīliào) which can be found at this link. The database includes the full text of resources and also provides topical analysis. According to their website, the database employs professional editors and academic experts to carefully select and classify the massive number of papers published in China.
Finally, HNC librarians have also encouraged students to utilize Web of Science, for social science academic sources. Web of science allows users to search for high-quality papers and popular results by frequency of citations and number of uses. The left-hand panel has useful filters such as highly cited papers, review papers, hot papers, and open access papers (free for downloading). These tools enable us to see which sources scholars of the social sciences are most excited about and which papers we can access easily for free. Web of Science also allows users to create citation alerts for important sources and save searches.
Additional Chinese & English Online Source Databases:
- Chinese：超星数字图书馆 (chāoxīng shùzì túshū guǎn), 读秀学术搜索 (dú xiù xuéshù sōusuǒ), CADAL
- English: Elsevier SD, ProQuest, EBSCO, Taylor & Francis, JSTOR, Project Muse
- Chinese Journals：CNKI中国知网 (zhōngguó zhī wǎng), 万方数据 (wàn fāng shùjù)，全国报刊索引 (quánguó bàokān suǒyǐn)
- Chinese Domestic Dissertation Theses：万方学位论文 (wàn fāng xuéwèi lùnwén), 知网学位论文 (zhī wǎng xuéwèi lùnwén)，中国国家图书馆 (zhōngguó guójiā túshū guǎn)
- Open Access Resources: pubScholar, NCPSSD, DOAJ, Open Textbook Library
Don’t forget to use excel, Endnote, Refworks, Zotero, or other citation managing tools to keep track of your sources.
Good luck and happy hunting!
Written by Hannah Bases MAIS '26
