History

Every research project starts with a question. Your question will allow you to select, evaluate and interpret your sources systematically. The question you start with isn’t set in stone, so you can revisit and revise it as you learn more about your project. Here are some ideas for generating a good research question:

• Always think about the 5 W's - who, what, when, where, and why.
• Doing some background research with reference or "quick guide to X" handbook sources can help you identify areas that interest you within your topic area - this can even be with quick google searches or reading a Wikipedia article.
• Think about what questions you have about your topic - what do you want to learn more about? If the research project is for an assignment, find the crossover between what you are interested in and what the assignment is asking you to do.
• Write down or make a concept map of all the possible aspects or perspectives of your topic that you can think of. Brainstorming can serve as a map to guide you through the research process, often saving a lot of time down the road.

With your newly found research question, the library's resources are yours to explore! Construct a search query, browse the shelves, or find a database in your subject area to get started!

Using the best searching methods is important to get the most out of the library's resources! Here are some strategies to help you translate your research questions into search queries:

1. There are checkboxes on the library search to automatically limit searches to full text and scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles. Using these ensures that your results are specially tailored for finding online academic research articles.
2. Break down your research questions into key concepts and keywords. Library searches don't work well with regular questions like Google does, so using several keywords instead can widen your searches.
3. Use keywords and synonyms to cover different ways ideas might be expressed. A database may seem like it doesn't have what you're looking for, but sometimes using a synonym can help find it!
4. Take advantage of the various filters or the "Advanced Search" function. Narrowing down the results by type or year means quicker access to more relevant resources.
5. Use quotation marks for exact phrases. The search <industrial revolution> will retrieve results for both the keywords and the phrase, but the search <"industrial revolution"> will only retrieve results that contain the combined phrase exactly as you typed it.
6. Adjust as you go! No single search will find every helpful result, so try different searches, analyze your results, and refine your questions!

Sometimes, it's nice to just wander the shelves looking for just the right book, flipping through to gauge the contents. The book collection is organized according to Library of Congress Call Numbers. Where to start? Call numbers that start with the letters D, E, or F are for History, but there are other areas of the library that might also be of interest (See Library of Congress Classification Outline). Below is a breakdown of the call number ranges for specific topics related to History.

• History (General): D
• Great Britain: DA
• Central Europe: DAW
• Greco-Roman World: DE
• Asia: DS
• Africa: DT
• Oceania (South Seas): DU
• Specific European areas and countries may have their own subclassification, see the Library of Congress Classification Outline for specifics.
• America: E11-143
• United States: E151-909
• United States Local History: F1-975
• British America (including Canada): F1001-1145.2
• French America: F1170
• Latin America. Spanish America: F1201-3799

The library search returns information from all of our sources, including our databases, but if you already have an idea of what you want, it might be faster and more helpful to go straight to a database.

Databases are organized collections of information that let you find high-quality sources quickly. Unlike a regular web search, databases contain scholarly articles, ebooks, primary sources, and other reliable materials selected by experts. Think of them as specialized libraries within the library, since each focuses on a particular subject or type of resource. Using databases helps you save time, find credible sources, and uncover materials you might not locate with a general web search.

Below are some of the key databases that the library offers for the field of history, but more can be found in the library's A-Z list.

[Note: Google Scholar is a Google search through peer-reviewed sources, but you may find results that are not held by ENMU. You can request those articles through Interlibrary Loan.]