[n.b. all the embedded internet
search links located below can be also found on the
The C of I History Dept.
research web site or the
Terteling
Library web site]
You can best accomplish writing a well focused and well formulated research paper in history if you follow a number of steps, each contributing clarity and substance to the final product.
1. The Topic: Choose a general topic of genuine interest and then narrow your scope to a specific aspect of that topic. Topics that are too broad require sketchy treatment if they are to be done in 10 to 15 pages. Attempt to narrow topics considerably: specific questions--like why did the People's Charter campaigns in early nineteenth-century England fail?--or specific comparisons--like how did Trotsky and Stalin's communist vision differ and to what effect?--allow you to undertake a manageable task and provide a theme that can direct your research. Attempt to gain focus and theme as early as possible in the project. One of the easiest approaches to narrowing a topic about which you know little is to read briefly in general sources of reference like Stearns' Encyclopedia of World History [and D21.E578 2001.R, on reserve at the Terteling desk] the Encyclopedia Britannica [Terteling reserve section] or an online encyclopedia like the Columbia Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.com, or Wikipedia (although, note well: Wikipedia should never be used as a cited source in an academic paper) on the general subject of interest. An investment of 15 or 20 minutes of this sort can save enormous amounts of time in aimless topic selection, however, note well: encyclopedia sources should never make up the foundation or the bulk of your sources for a serious research paper. They are only starting points.
2. Research and Bibliography:
Bibliographies are best prepared by consulting several resources.
The first resource for students at The College of Idaho is the Terteling Library Online Catalog, now with ability to concurrently search all holdings of the Northwest Nazarene University Riley Library. Often the Advanced Search function provides a much better tool for specific searches. It is accessible from the internet (consult the History Department or the Terteling Library Homepage and follow the appropriate links). The online catalog is best searched by subject word. Try to choose a variety of subject words that seem relevant to your topic: for a topic on Mahatma Gandhi, you might try "Gandhi", "India", "Indian National Congress", "nonviolence", "Nehru", "Indian independence", "swaraj" and many others. When you locate a book of relevance, notice in its full display the "subject" category. Click on subject categories to retrieve like works, and also use relevant words from the subject category in subsequent keyword searches.
Once you have compiled a list of books from the Terteling catalog, you can then
proceed in two ways to extend your book bibliography using these Terteling
resources. First, when you go
to locate those books in the stacks, pay attention to their call numbers and
simply peruse the books (groups of call numbers refer to books on related
subjects) that physically surround them. Second, consult the
bibliographies of each of your book finds (concentrate on the newest books,
particularly those published after 1980) to determine which books, articles
and primary sources the author has used and select the most promising of these
for your own research. If you discover in the catalog that the book is
checked out, don't stop there. Call the book using Interlibrary Loan.
Often it will be here in a day or two.
You also have the ability to search other library catalogs. The College of Idaho has access to the premier university and public library catalog search system, OCLC, which can be searched using WorldCat. When you find books that you would like to look at, you can order them using the Interlibrary Loan tab available on the full record of each book. If you have more complex needs, see the Terteling Library Interlibrary Loan Page and seek the assistance of the library staff. (Please note: ILL can deliver books as early as 1 business day, or as long as 45 days, depending on the lending library. Start your search and make your requests early!) In addition, Google Books has now scanned an enormous number of eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth-century books (all out of copyright) and provides both keyword searchable text to these, and also .pdf files of the entire book that can be downloaded. There is thus, in effect, now an enormous nineteenth-century library, including many bound periodicals, at your disposal. In addition, however, Google Books also provides keyword reference to contemporary books: while you cannot see them in their entirety or download them, you can find them and thus secure them through interlibrary loan.
It can also be very useful to
use general internet search engines to develop bibliographies if you proceed in
this way: using a good relational search engine like Google, enter several general search terms
and the word "bibliography". So, for example, to build a
bibliography on women in the Third Reich, type in "women nazi third reich
bibliography". You should get several good bibliographies as
hits. Repeat this strategy using the word "syllabus". Be sure to use only those that come from credible academic web
sites.
Resources also
exist for searches for periodical articles and books on historical subjects:
1) Terteling Library offers several extremely valuable online article databases, most notably JSTOR, Project MUSE, and Academic Search Premier, all of which provide large numbers of articles from historical journals in electronic form. You may now access these databases off campus by providing your student ID number. While not all relevant historical journals, and not all of the most recent volumes of certain journals, are available through these sources, a large range of very valuable journal sources are.
2) The most comprehensive bibliographical listing of articles in history
journals is Historical Abstracts, a yearly
updated bibliographical catalog (from 1955 to the present) available through the Terteling Library homepage. It is also available in its paper
form in Terteling Library (articles on American history from 1965 are cataloged
in America:
History and Life). Historical Abstracts is the most
comprehensive reference to history books, periodical articles, and
dissertations.
3) Another very valuable searchable bibliographical resource for academic
articles is Google Scholar, available on the internet. Google Scholar gives title word,
author and relational searches to enormous numbers of articles and books which,
if available through services subscribed to by Terteling Library, you can link to
directly. Articles not available directly can be secured through
interlibrary loan.
4) Be sure to look through the other online databases and indexes available on the Terteling Liberary Homepage that may be relevant to a particular aspect of your topic, for example, literature, philosophy or anthropology. But note well: a thoroughly researched paper should not rely entirely on online sources, because not all journals and not all volumes of indexed journals are available in electronic format, and books still form the backbone of scholarship in history. You may also consult Terteling Library's history articles search page and its additional history links.
5) Primary sources: history's primary foundation rests on the analysis of primary sources, those texts and other artifacts directly associated with the people in the past time period that you are studying: letters, diaries, newspaper articles, magazine articles, government documents, books, photographs, oral interviews and the like. Many primary sources are pulled together in document collections and you can retrieve these in an online library catalog like WorldCat by typing in your search terms in a keyword search (e.g. "Presbyterian United States frontier") and including the word "letters" and/or "documentary" and/or "sources". You may also find many primary sources online (this is often the best use of search strategies on the open internet). A good place to start is this Primary and Electronic Sources Guide.
6) The
Ingenta Search service (formerly the
CARL Uncover service) is also available on the internet. Ingenta gives title word
and author searches to articles in over 10,000 journals indexed from
1989. For a fee you can have the articles faxed to you; you can
alternatively consult those journals that Terteling carries or request copies
of these articles through
interlibrary loan.
7) You may profitably use paper index resources such as the Reader's Guide
to Periodical Literature (for non-scholarly popular periodicals) the Social
Science Index (for subjects with
contemporary social science implications), and the Book Review Index (for
relevant book reviews on all published books), all available in Terteling in paper
form.
NOTE WELL: Many journals not available
at ACI can be accessed using the Electronic Subscription services or Interlibrary Loan;
Adobe .pdf files or photocopied articles can be
delivered directly to you through these services.
Finally, do not neglect the resources of the reference section of Terteling
Library in your bibliographical groundwork. Articles in the Encyclopedia
Britannica are written by leading scholars in the field and often have useful
attached bibliographies. More important for serious research are subject
bibliography volumes. For a general review of literature in history see
The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature, Pamela Gerardi, ed., (New York: Oxford UP, 1995) [LC Z6201.A55.1995]. Most areas
of history now have subject bibliographies,: for example, A Bibliography of
Modern History, ed. John Roach, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968), A Bibliography
of British History, 1851-1914, ed. H.J. Hanham, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976)
or Chinese History, A Bibliography, ed. Leona Rasmussen Phillips (New York:
Gordon Press, 1978), to name a very few of many. One further advantage to
using subject bibliographies is that they organize works under subject
headings, which you can then use to conduct searches in online catalogs and
databases. Terteling Library has many such volumes in the reference
stacks surrounding the encyclopedias on the ground floor.
The bibliography of a good medium-length research paper (10-15) should have at
least one independent scholarly or primary source reference per page (10-15
total),
excluding reference works and internet sites. Longer research papers should have at least
fifteen to twenty. While the internet is becoming more useful as a
research source, use of it is no substitute for more traditional research
methods. No serious research paper should rely primarily on internet sources.
An important note on information found on the World Wide Web: If you use internet information and documents to supplement your research project in history you should take note of these points:
1) the Internet cannot at this point replace traditional methods and sources for historical writing. In most cases the information available on the Internet is of the depth and nature available in reference works and therefore should only be used to fill gaps in your knowledge or provide a starting point for your research.
2) great caution must be used in assessing the reliability of much of the material available on the Internet. Internet information does not generally go through the rigorous refereeing and editorial process applied by traditional journals and publishers and therefore does not have the safeguard of peer review by professional historians.
3) the availability of material on the Internet varies widely from subject to subject. Do not expect to have access to useful material in all areas. In many cases the greatest use of the Internet to the historian is in providing bibliographical information on traditionally printed materials which can then be retrieved from a library.
3. Reading, note taking, and outlines:
Once you have defined a topic and/or a general question to be pursued in your
research paper, this advance knowledge of your subject will make reading and
note taking more efficient. Knowing your topic and the types of evidence
you will need to develop it are essential to efficient research. Failure
to adequately define a topic before research begins can result in much wasted
time and the collection of information that could become useless to your final
product.
I generally recommend to writers of research papers the use of note cards, or a
note card format computer system for note taking, and the careful indication on
each card of the source from which the material comes. The great
flexibility in rearranging ideas and evidence in note card format to fit an
outline makes this strategy the best for creating thoughtful, creative, and
well supported arguments. When taking notes, it is best to paraphrase the
ideas of other authors as efficiently as possible, only writing direct quotes
when the material or phraseology seem to be so outstanding or clear that it
cannot be condensed. It is always best to write with your own words and
in your own style as much as possible, despite the seeming eloquence of some of
your sources, even when taking notes. The act of rephrasing is the act of
digesting the material, and in the process of doing so you will come to a
better understanding of the subject and your own insights. It is also
necessary to draw on as wide a variety of sources and perspectives as possible
to avoid the problem of bias or narrowness of perspective and to give your own
judgments on your subject the widest base of information possible. It is
best not to appear to give under-considered or shallow analyses in a research
paper.
Once you have identified a topic, and begun reading in it, it is often useful
to begin to organize your paper through the use of outlines. When you
have finished your research, an outline is absolutely essential for the
organization of the numerous note cards that you will have amassed. There
are a couple of basic formats for the organization of an outline: a
chronological organization around eras or phases of development (i.e.
historical sequence) is often useful for a specific topic; a topical
organization around themes for understanding or elements of influence (i.e. a
woven cloth of explanation) is often useful for more general topics. After
you have developed a detailed outline with major headings and subheadings, you
will want to reread your note cards and arrange them by assigning each to a
heading in your outline. Once you have done this, you will be ready to
write an organized, well supported, and logical research paper.
4. Writing: Please draw on the grammar, syntax and style lessons you learned in your English composition classes in the completion of your paper. College level papers should be carefully proofread and free of spelling and writing errors. There are many style and writing manuals that you may refer to in order to check your writing for style and clarity. Research papers must conform to established standards for documentation and bibliography. In history, Chicago/Turabian style footnotes/endnotes are the almost exclusively preferred style for documentation. Examples of this citation style can be found at these links (Chicago-style citations (C of I); Chicago-style humanities format) and, of course, in the Chicago Manual of Style, on reserve at Terteling Library.
Most important to the writing of your paper, you
should establish a clear and defensible thesis. It is mistaken to think
that you can write “about” a topic; instead, you need to establish a clear
interpretive line of thought, an argument, and defend it with evidence.
Thus, the essay should consist of a lucid introductory paragraph briefly
detailing the question at hand, providing information and historical context on
the subject, and clearly identifying the paper’s thesis. The series of
paragraphs that follow should each possess a topic sentence and supporting
evidence designed to advance that thesis through logical argumentation.
The paper should conclude with a paragraph or section that summarizes the major
point or points of the paper and reinforces the importance of the topic to
larger historical issues.
Generally speaking, your should write your paper as if for an educated reader that is largely ignorant about your subject. And in any history assignment, it is essential that you employ evidence to support each assertion or generalization you make in the body of your paper. Clarity of argument, prose and demonstration through evidence should be your goals.
Steven Maughan, The College of Idaho,
March 06, 2008