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You are here: Library > Government Documents > History Research Guide > Research tips and help Government Documents: History Research Tips & Help |
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| Sure, you
can Google your way to 156,000,043 search results, but wouldn't you rather
have a shorter list of better sources?
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Developing a list of keywords or key concepts related to your topic will save time by focusing your search on only what you need. Think of the keyword list as a roadmap, guiding you to your research destinations. Asking yourself the following questions will help you develop a working list:
One or more of these questions may not be useful for your topic: use only the ones you feel are appropriate. On the other hand, you may come up with keywords that do not fit neatly with any of these questions. Add these to your keyword list as well. Write down the list as a series of words or short phrases, so that as you search, you have the terms at hand. You may want to revise this list as your research progresses, to reflect new concepts and ideas that have come up since you began: like a roadmap, your keyword list will change over time as new routes and destinations are discovered. At this point, you have developed your keyword list and you're almost ready to go! Before setting out, though, you may benefit from some basic search tips. Start with general resources:If there is a course reading, a textbook chapter, or another resource available on your topic from your class materials, use this as a starting point. If not, begin with general reference sources, then move to article indexes, and finally to books, journals, and web resources. And always look for a bibliography-one relevant source with a detailed list of cited works can often help you find many more useful sources.
Use a 'word' or 'keyword' search: Don't be afraid to browse: Check all the shelves: Each record in our online catalog has subject headings that can help
you find similar titles. Example of a record with subject headings:
Like most academic libraries, the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins uses the Library of Congress classification scheme for its General Collection of books. The Government Documents, however, have their own classification scheme, called SuDoc (Superintendent of Documents) numbers. You might find what you need in either collection, so make sure you know how to find your way around. Books are sorted into categories and assigned a one or two letter initial designation: Library of Congress sorts books based on their subject, while SuDoc sorts books based on the agency that creates them. (see below) This means that if you are looking for information on a certain topic, you should be prepared to look in several places - for example, history of U.S. military action abroad may be found from the Department of Defense, the State Department, the CIA, the Executive Office of the President and Congress. TIP: make sure you write down every part of a SuDoc number! All those slashes, colons and other punctuation marks have meaning.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES EXPLAINED Narrow down your search by thinking about what types of materials you may need - or expand it by exploring new types: Primary Sources are original documents or images created at the time of a certain event. Examples of primary documents include Congressional hearings, presidential press conferences, and the collection titled "Foreign Relations of the United States," which includes reports, memos and correspondence. Secondary Sources are informational sources that analyze a certain event. A secondary source can be a journal article, a book or a documentary. Secondary sources can contain primary ones, such as when a book about the U.S. constitution contains the full text of the original document. If you need a brief, basic explanation of a foreign policy matter, you probably need a secondary source such as an encyclopedia article. But if this matter is a paper topic and you need to know exactly who said what when, and get quotes, you may want the primary source. The Government Documents Collection is full of primary documents because we receive them directly from the Federal agencies and departments; but it also contains secondary sources, such as books of military history created by the Defense Department's historians. Our main Collection has both types of sources, and they can also be found using web resources. More questions? Try our Frequently Answered Questions page, or email us.
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last
updated on:July 26, 2007