What would you like to research for this assignment? The number of possible topics is vast, which may make the task more difficult.
Try writing out a topic triangle as the above video demonstrates. You may choose a topic from the European Middle Ages to the present (roughly 500 AD to now). For example, you might look at sports in the European history. Narrowing your topic, you might look at the history of soccer, which is sometimes called association football. If you like, you could narrow your topic further to the history of the FIFA World Cup.
It's prudent to read a few encyclopedia articles about your topic in order to become familiar with it, as well as move your topic from the general to the specific. We librarians call this pre-research. Again, to use our example, if you're interested in the history of sports, then you could read articles on that topic. You could get more specific and look at articles about soccer or association football, or even the World Cup.
For that end, I highly recommend the database Credo Reference, which is a database of reference book articles. Use this to explore your topic. Wander as your interests take you.
The video above shows you how to search Credo Reference. There is a link to the database below.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Includes materials from over 650 reference books on a variety of topics in higher education, including art, business, history, languages, literature, science, criminal justice, and political science.
The above video explains the differences between primary and secondary sources.
In the study of history, primary sources refers to first-hand accounts of events. Secondary sources are those written by authors who did not have first-hand accounts of events. So, for example, writings by Jules Rimet, the soccer administrator who founded the World Cup, would be primary sources. Articles about his life would be secondary sources.
I would like to stress that the search for primary sources comes after your pre-research. It's very hard to recognize relevant primary sources when you have only a cursory knowledge of your topic. To continue the above example, if you are writing about the World Cup and don't know who Jules Rimet is, then you might pass up a letter that he wrote as a primary source, even though it might be very relevant to your research topic.
There is no one, central, unified body of primary sources for world history. But here are some excellent collections for you to browse.
For more than twenty years, Fordham University has maintained an ever-growing body of historical sources, many of them primary sources, sorted by cultural, chronological, and geographic categories.
GMU has an online guide to finding historical sources sorted by time period and region.
Now that you have keywords, it's time to search the databases. Have you used the databases before? If you don't have recent experience with our library's databases, then I suggest watching this introductory video.
We have several library databases that are useful for historical research. One is called Academic Search Complete. This video will teach you how to search it for scholarly journal articles about your topic. There is a link below to the database.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Multi-disciplinary database; full text of articles from over 5,300 journals, magazines and newspapers, plus image collections. Video Tutorial
Another excellent database for historical research is JSTOR. This video shows you how to search it for scholarly journal articles on your topic. There is a link below to the database.
We have two excellent ebook databases. These let you read full-text books online. The interfaces can be confusing, so I have included a tutorial video for each one.
The video above shows you how to search the ebook database titled EBSCO eBook Collection.
EBSCO eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
Search complete electronic books. Set up a free account and download to your PC, Mac, Nook, Sony, Android, iPhone, or iPad.
The video above shows you how to search the database ProQuest EBook Central.
Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
Over 100,000 ebook titles covering a full range of academic topics. General reference works are also included.
Video Tutorial