American History

Tips for Library Research

When conducting research for your Unit VII assignment, here are some best practices:

 For this course, best results may come from the America: History and Life with Full Text database

because it has narrowed down the possible choices to one subject.

 Academic Search Complete is also a good database to use for this assignment.

 There are other engines you may find useful, but they will pull from a larger and less specific pool

of resources.

 Simplify the search terms:

o On a single line, use either “Eli Whitney” or “Cotton Gin” but not both together. You can

use both on separate lines.

o It can sometimes help to avoid being too specific. With 1846 Wilmot Proviso, the

computer is going to search for “1846” and “Wilmot” and “Proviso” because the name is

somewhat unique. By leaving off the year, this may help to narrow the potential unwanted

choices. Make sure to use quotes around “Wilmot Proviso”; it searches for the words as a

phrase instead of individually “Wilmot” and “Proviso.” In addition, if you change the drop

down from “Date Newest” to “Relevance,” you will find better results.

o Consider alternate terms. With a selection like “1848 National Election,” because the

words are so frequently used, you may want to instead use names of key figures for your

search.

 Define what to look for in your search. See the example below for "Compromise of 1850."

o By using quotation marks, the engine understands “Compromise of 1850” as a single

term.

o By narrowing the field of search to a “SU Subject Terms,” that further specifies your

intended results to only the most likely 26 results.

 Use a subject-specific search engine whenever possible.

o How to subject search:

 In the drop-down menu to the right of the blank box, change the default to “SU

Subject Terms.” Subject searching can give you more exact results. Below is a

key word search for “compromise of 1850,” which resulted in 651 results.

 By changing “Select a Field” to “SU Subject Terms,” you are able to narrow your

results down to articles that just specifically have “compromise of 1850” as a

main subject.

 After you type in your topic and you have a hit search, you can limit your results

further on the left side of the screen by selecting “Refine Results.” The default is

“All Results,” but for this project you want to focus on academic journals,

magazines, newspapers, and government documents. Avoid “Book Reviews”

altogether.