FREN 202: Intermediate French Readings

Welcome to the course guide for FREN 202: Intermediate French Readings. Here you'll find a selection of resources to help you locate material for your study of topics relevant to the francophone world.

1) To find material in foreign languages in library catalogs and databases, you have two main options.

• Use French vocabulary in the search bar: génétiquement modifié, bibliotheque, etc.
  • Watch out for homonyms and false cognates.
  • These searches may return results in languages other than French, but which have French materials in the bibliography or footnotes. Or, articles in English, but published in primarily French-language journals
• Use the widgets available in most databases to select French materials, usually via a drop-down menu.
  • Depending on the database, the English term may be matched to keywords, abstracts, or subject headings.
• To search well, especially as you advance in your studies, you must use both of the methods above.

2) If your word or concept returns too large a set of results, try adding the definite article (e.g. "la femme" vs. "femme").

3) Put phrases, titles, or full names in quotation marks if you get too many results (e.g. La Nouvelle Vague vs. "La Nouvelle Vague").

4) VCU Libraries databases will not translate Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) if you use French. A search for "chanel AND chemise" will return significantly different results from "chanel et chemise."