HST 205/306: Questions in History (Nebiolo)

• Use terms found in your background reading on the subject
• Ask other people in the field for terms used to describe your topic 
• Use the Thesaurus or Subject Terms listings, if available, in the databases you are searching (example)
• When you find a record for an item that is useful to you, look at its subject headings or descriptors for more ideas (example)

• Look at the bibliographies of items that are closely related to your topic. Sometimes they will be called "References" or "Works Cited."  You can often find sources that may be very helpful or may in turn lead you to useful sources.  (example)
• To find newer sources that reference an item you found, many databases include a "Cited By" section. Google Scholar lists the link directly under each entry on the results page. (example)
• When you find a helpful item, look at its subject terms and try a subject search using those terms. (example)

• Check your search to see if you entered it and spelled it as you intended

• Take a break and try again later

• Ask for help

• Read the "instructions"

  • Check to see if the database you are searching is appropriate for your topic.  Information about the database can usually found by clicking an i or About or similar button or tab. (example)  With EBSCO databases, click on Choose Databases and then Detailed View for this info (example)

  • Check the Help feature or Search Tips (or sometimes it will be a ?) to see if you are entering your searches correctly for that database (example) 

• Your skills will improve with practice - especially if you pay attention to what works in different situations

Keywords

What you put into the search box matters quite a bit. Here are some tips:

• Use nouns whenever possible. Adjectives and verbs can be tricky
• If you're using phrases, put them in "quotation marks" to tell the search to find the words together, in that order
• Explore alternate terms and synonyms. For example - freedom: independence, self-governance, self-determination, etc.

Finding Too Much? 

• Be more specific with your topic. For example - "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" instead of Holocaust
• Narrow down: include a group of people, geography, time span, or scope in your search

Keep a search log with your group so you can know who's searched where, for what terms.

Save your sources so you have access to any citation information later, but be sure to save more than just browser URLs! Those can break and leave you stranded with no way to get back to the source. Titles, authors, databases, permalinks -- all very helpful.

Google Tricks:

A Google search can help you find additional primary sources. Try this trick:

• Add "site:.edu" before or after your search term to limit to university resources, like LibGuides or university library collections.
• Add "site:.gov" before or after your search term to limit to U.S. government resources. You can also add .eu for European resources, or look up the domain for any particular country.
• Add "site:.org" before or after your search term to limit to organization sites. Note: not all organizations are credible!! However, many museums use this domain.
• You can also search a specific site using this. 
  • For example, searching "site:wikimedia.org puppies" will return images of puppies on Wikimedia.org

Trying searching Google Scholar, rather than just Google to find focused results within scholarly literature.

Use a wildcard in your search:

• The asterisk * in Google functions as a wildcard, it tells Google to fill-in-the-blank on entire words in a phrase.
  • Example: Searching * of money returns results that include the phrases "Velocity of money" "Value of money" "History of money" "Function of money" and more.
• If you want to Google to fill-in-the-blank for just a letter in a word, use a period.
  • Example: searching wom.n returns results for woman, women, womxn, womyn, wom*n, and more.