WRITING ABOUT HISTORY

KEYWORDS + IDEAS

RESEARCH TRACKER (Shortened)

RESEARCH TRACKER (Longer)

TOPIC IDEA GENERATION

ACTIVITY

USE Google to find archives for primary sources. Archives often have the materials available freely.

*use a dictionary! you may encounter terms you've never heard before.

AREAS TO CONSIDER

infrastructure (highways, transportation), housing, education, recreation, climate, health

THE COLOR OF LAW (your book)

Alexander, Michelle. 2012. The New Jim Crow. Vol. Revised edition with a new foreword by Cornel West. New York: The New Press. (book)

THE INTERSTATE SYSTEM

NPR: FORGOTTEN HISTORY, SEGREGATED AMERICA

LIBRARY SOURCES

TIPS + DON't Forgets

Doing research off campus? You will need to log into the database. Refer to the username and password here.

REMEMBER: You need to provide Footnotes in your paper. There are a few simple rules. Remind yourself of these rules here. Also a simple "cheat sheet" for building your own footnotes. Here's a video of how to create footnotes.


SEARCHING TIPS


" "

quotes around a search term keeps terms together; search engine won't search for each term separately (ex. "dust bowl")

~

tilda's before search terms search for like terms (ex. ~dust bowl will search for dust bowl, dust bowls)

SEARCHING FOR PRIMARY SOURCES

Consider looking in digital archives, like the Library of Congress or University collections. Add "primary source" to your Google Search string.

In databases, add keywords like "eyewitness" "eyewitness account" "witness to" "speech" "diary" "oral history" to your searches. This will bring back ebooks with extensive primary sources within them.

FINDING OP-EDS 

USE PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS

SELECT ADVANCED SEARCH

FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS BELOW FOR HONING IN ON OPINION PIECES

UNDER ADVANCED SEARCH, YOU CAN ALSO SELECT COMMENTARY UNDER DOCUMENT TYPE INSTEAD OF USING SECTION LIMITER ABOVE.

NEED HELP?

Reach out to Jenna at jwolf@csw.org to set up time.

AREAS TO CONSIDER