As with any research project, the first step is generally to select your topic. Reference materials (encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, etc. . .) can be a great way to get started. These resources offer overviews of thousands of topics and will help you launch into your search for the scholarly resources that you will need to use to support your research. On this page you will find some selections to get you started.
When brainstorming, it can also be helpful to browse popular, non-scholarly resources in order to understand the status of general discourse on your topic and explore diverse viewpoints while developing thesis statement that can be supported with scholarly resources.
Read your assignment carefully!
Start with brainstorming and background research:
Support your topic/thesis statement with high-quality resources that meet the requirements of your assignment:
Not sure what movement you want to cover? Check out a timeline!
Britannica Academic provides access to high-quality, comprehensive reference information. Includes access to the Britannica encyclopedia, atlas, world data, the Classics, biographies, news, multimedia, and more. You can also use Britannica Academic to search an Internet directory that includes more than 300,000 links to Web sites selected, rated, and reviewed by Britannica editors. This database also includes the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary.
Credo Reference provides full-text online access to hundreds of multidisciplinary reference book collections, including art, history, law, medicine, psychology, technology, bilingual dictionaries, and encyclopedias through a one-stop search platform. Search results often include articles from a wide array of publications and frequently present subject coverage from multiple perspectives. Using Credo Reference to approach a topic from different viewpoints can be a great way to expand your familiarity with the topic and it can help you develop new arguments and observations for your research.
A multidisciplinary digital library that includes all 2,800+ academic journals on JSTOR; spanning more than 60 disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Access also includes more than two million primary source documents.
And, with the incorporation of Artstor's collections, JSTOR is now home to more than two million images.
Running a basic search in JSTOR is similar to searching in Wikipedia. You can use general keywords and phrases in your search and JSTOR will return results across its full collection that include some or all of your keywords.
On the results page, the left-side menu can be used to filter your results. Check the "Content I can Access" button to access full-text articles.
Clicking the "Advanced Search" button above the search box opens an new page with additional options to control what kinds of results your search will return.
Use the provided Advanced Search fields, dropdown menus, and material types boxes to refine your search.
JSTOR also provides a Search Help page that provides specific overview of the advanced tools available on the platform. Examples include using Boolean Operators, Truncation, Wildcards, and Proximity searching.
In addition to standard database searching, JSTOR includes several tools that can be used for exploring your topic, discovering resources, and extracting data from the JSTOR collection. Each of these resources can be found in the Tools menu in the upper-right portion of any search page.
JSTOR offers a full LibGuides site of research guides to help researchers make the most of the platform. These assistance tools can be found in the page footer of any page by clicking the "LibGuides" or "Research Basics" links.
On the search results page, Oxford Reference Premium offers a series of post-search filtering options on the left side of the page under the heading "Narrow Your Choices":
By default, Oxford Reference Premium shows all content in the results, which includes articles that are not available in full-text. Item availability is indicated to the right of the result with a green open lock , the word Free in a green oval
, or a red closed lock
.
To limit the results list to items that are available in full-text, check the "Unlocked" and "Free" boxes under the heading "By Availability" in the left side menu and click submit: