HIST 4990: Senior Thesis in History (Short): Research Process

Historical research can be incredibly exciting and interesting, but getting started can be daunting--especially if you are starting from scratch in coming up with a topic. 

In general, the most important thing to remember is that getting started early is essential.  Give your self time to browse, connect, reimagine, and revise.  Below are some links walk you through steps for developing a topic and writing an interesting paper.  These aren't the only way to approach the work, but they give you a place to start.  Remember to consult your professor for big questions or concerns and to re-read the assignment.

Learning to Do Historical Research: A Primer
How to Frame a Researchable Question
Created by historian William Cronin and his graduate students to help undergraduates develop research topic in environmental history, but ideas and concepts are useful for any area of historical research.

Stages of A Historical Research Project
Independent project on the Web. offers a streamlined outline for research processes that may be a good quick reference tool

Parentheses

• An alternative to a database's Advanced Search
• Allows you to construct complex searches combining AND, OR, NOT by grouping search terms appropriately

Example:

 (Teenagers OR Juveniles) AND Violence

Truncation

• Expands the search to locate all words beginning with the same root 
• Symbol to truncate is usually an asterisk (*)
  • Example: teen* will return teen, teens, teenage, teenager, etc.
• Useful to include any variants authors might use to describe their research
• Not all words can effectively be truncated
  • Example: Trying to truncate woman as wom* will return wombat, womb, as well as woman and women. 

Wildcard

• Used in the middle of a word to match usually known variants of a term.
• A wildcard usually represents a single character
• Symbol to represent the single character is usually a question mark (?) but this can vary by database. 
  • Example: wom?n will return woman, women, and womyn.

Note: These search tools involve using various symbols.  The symbols change depending on the database's vendor/interface you're dealing with, and the symbols may change over time within one of these vendors/interfaces.  If you have any questions about what symbols are used in a database, check its "Help" section.

Sage Research Methods:  supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process.

Keyword Search Tips and Tricks

Brainstorm terms related to  your topic

• For views of Georgians the best keywords to try are:  constituent, correspondence, opinion polls, forum, citizen, views, letters
• Try different versions of the same word (example: Cuba, Cuban)
• Try terms that are specific and general (example: Athens, Georgia, the South)
• Explore the variety of descriptive terms that different groups used to describe the same people, events, places, and ideas (example: Civil War vs. War between the States, activists vs. agitators, protesters vs. rabble) 
• Explore the evolution of meaning of terms over time.  Words that mean something to us today may have different meanings earlier in time or at specific moments in time.  ("busing" in the early 1970s is about implementation of desegregation orders in the early 1970s in the American South, whereas today, "busing" might be about environmental issues related to transportation)
• Think like a file clerk. sometimes collections are organized by subjects, but often they are organized around dates, alphabetical listings of names, or by the group or individual that produced the records. If you don't find any files called "Cuban Missile Crisis" in a search of a politician's papers from the early 1960s, there is a good chance that there are relevant materials in  a folder called "1962." (The more you know; the MORE YOU KNOW!)

Never Admit Defeat!

• If you try all of the tricks described above and still don't find what you are looking for, consider browsing the finding aids for materials donated by  people who are likely to be involved  in your topic.  Remember, every finding aid has a biography abotu the person or group that created or collected the materials.  
• Never be aftaid to ask an archivist for help; that's why we're here. We work for you! 

• Allow a database search to be narrowed, broadened or made more precise.
• There are three Boolean operators:  AND, OR, and NOT.
• AND, OR, NOT are inserted between each search term.

AND

• Used for narrowing or focusing a search topic. 
• Specifies that both search terms must be present in the results. 

Example: Teenagers AND Violence

OR

• Used for expanding or broadening a search topic. 
• Specifies that either search term can be present in the results. 
• Often used to include synonyms or related terms.

Example: Teenager OR Juvenile OR Adolescent

NOT

• Used to eliminate false hits, or get rid of that one term that you don't want in your results list. 
• Specifies that the first term but not the second can be present in the results. 

Example: Teenagers NOT Violence.