• About Us
• Searchable Collections
• Borrowing & Ordering
• Faculty
• Off-Campus Access
• Archives & Special Collections
• Help & Instruction
  • Ask Library-Questions
  • Instant Answers@WPI
  • Research Consultation
  • Research Skills Tutorials
  • Self-Help Guides
  • How To... Videos
  • Tools
  • Course-related Resources
  • Project Center Resources
  • General Sessions
• Library Home
• Search
  Quickfind: Books/Articles*
  Library Catalog
  Library Journals
  Library Site
  

  Keyword Title Author Subject
  Advanced Catalog Search
  Your Account

  Advanced Journal Search

  
  *WPI Only | Off Campus | Advanced

HI 3316: Topics in Twentieth-Century U.S. History

T. Robertson

Background Information

• The free web: search engines and other free web sites such as Wikipedia
• Grolier Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana or Encyclopædia Britannica Online .

Reference & Electronic Resources

• Dictionary of American History. Reference E 174 A43 2003 10 volumes
• Historical Statistics of the United States. Reference HA202 A385 2006 5 volumes or online
• Biography Resource Center. check for background information, dates, etc. on people
• Oxford Reference Online - many history reference sources, useful for background information, fact checking

Information Choices: Discerning Academic/Scholarly Sources

Use different types of information to get broad coverage of your topic.

• Historians use Primary Source materials when they research
• Good researchers understand the differences between scholarly, popular, trade and other information. See Popular Magazines or Scholarly Journals: What's the Difference?

Scholarly vs. Popular Face Off

1. Articles written by professors are usually found in this type of publication:
   popular scholarly don't know
2. Colorful ads and short articles indicate that the source is probably:
   popular scholarly don't know
3. A 12 page article with 16 references is:
   popular scholarly don't know

What type of article is it? Review the citations below and select the type of publication you are looking at:

1. Energizing Energy; The U.S. urgently needs to tap new sources-and conserve old ones. John Carey, Chris Palmeri, and Wendy Zellner. Business Week 3926 (March 28, 2005): p.36.
   popular scholarly don't know
2. State, Ecology and Independence: Policy Responses to the Energy Crisis in the United States. Benny Temkin. British Journal of Political Science Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 441-462.
   popular scholarly don't know

Books

Search the Library Catalog for items @ WPI or WorldCat to search beyond our library.

QuickFIND - Multi-database Search for Books & Articles

Start with QuickFIND multi-database search to retrieve results from 11 databases (including the library catalog & Worldcat for books) on your topic with one search. There are 3 ways to search:

1. Library homepage,
2. Databases by Subject categories (History),
3. Advanced.

Find Articles

All databases listed are WPI subscriptions. But check out Google Scholar, a web search of scholarly sources.

• America, History & Life and Historical Abstracts: References to articles on historic topics. Click on FullTextFinder to track down full articles or options to obtain the full text.
• Humanities International Complete: Abstracts and full text of important scholarly journals in humanities.
• Readers Guide Retrospective: The Readers' Guide Index to Periodical Literature 1890-1982. Use FullTextFinder to track down the full text.
• New York Times Historical: Full text of up to 2004. Use LexisNexis Academic or GalePowerSearch for current NYT articles.
• Gale PowerSearch: Articles on all topics, click More Search options, limit the results to peer-reviewed publications. Contains articles back to the 1980s but good coverage of historical topics.
• JSTOR: Complete full text of important scholarly journals in a variety of academic fields. Coverage: Varies by publication but many back to late 1800s.
• Project Muse: Search full text of major historical and global studies journal, most academic sources.
• More History Databases

Search one of the above databases for at least one article on your topic. Jot down the reference here in Chicago style, documentary-note style. You may also want to email yourself the article.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

Example of a work from a library subscription service:

Temkin, Benny. "State, Ecology and Independence: Policy

Responses to the Energy Crisis in the United States."

British Journal of Political Science 13, no. 4 (1983): 441-462,

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-1234%28198310%

2913%3A4%3C441%3ASEAIPR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A.

What journal or magazine is this article from? Is it available in full text? Or just an abstract? If only an abstract is found, find the full text, using the library's Journals, Magazines, & Newspapers list.

Only Finding a Citation? Getting the Full Text

• Is the journal online or here in the library? Use FullTextFinder to link to full articles or retrieval options within database results or search our Journals, Magazines, & Newspapers list
• Visit another library: Search WorldCat to find one
• Request delivery from another library: Interlibrary Loan.

Questions?

• Stop by the reference desk or set up a research consultation.

Maintained by lib-webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: May 13, 2008, 13:18 EDT

George C. Gordon Library - Worcester Polytechnic Institute
100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280
Phone: +1-508-831-5410 - Fax: +1-508-831-5829 - Library Questions