HIST 300: Search Strategy

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HIST 300 Search Strategy

• April Duncan, Reference Librarian
• Langsdale Library
• aduncan_at_ubalt.edu
• 410-837-4269
• Originally presented by Tamara Smith, on 9/11/08

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Plan for Today

• Search Strategy
• Historical Research
• Getting Articles
• Activity Learn a Database
• Wrap-up
• 5-minute Evaluation (for library)

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Traditional Search Strategy

• Research Question
• How has womens suffrage changed politics in
  20th century America?

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Traditional Search Strategy
Womens suffrage politics 20th Century America
voting elections 1900s U.S.
Womens rights legislation modern United States
19th Amendment politicians Americans

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Search Statement
Womens suffrage AND politic
suffrage AND politic AND twentieth century
Womens rights AND legislat AND america
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Boolean Operators

• AND joins concepts/ideas together (both/all)
• OR combines synonyms or related terms
  (either/any)

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Combining Keywords

• Nesting combine like terms in parentheses used
  to combine synonyms
• Truncation () special symbol used to represent
  missing letters used in place of retyping an
  entire word

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Combining Keywords
(womens suffrage OR womens rights) AND
(politic OR legislat) AND twentieth century
AND (United States or America)
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Historical Research

• Research Topic
• Write a biographical essay about Lucy Stone and
  her place in American History.

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Historical Research

• What we know
• American
• What we need to know
• Where in America?
• Known for what?
• When in history?

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Historical Research

• Where to start?
• Textbook
• Encyclopedia
• Wikipedia
• Search engine
• Database

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Historical Research

• Lucy Stone
• Born 1818
• Grew up in Massachusetts

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Historical Research

• Not finding what you want?
• Get creative!

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Historical Research

• Keywords
• Names
• Lucy Stone
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
• Alice Stone Blackwell
• Places
• Massachusetts New Jersey
• United States

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Historical Research

• Keywords
• Events
• 1869 Schism between feminist parties
• Topics
• Suffrage
• National American Woman Suffrage Association
• Womens rights movement

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Finding Journal Articles

• Subject-Specific Databases
• America History and Life
• Humanities International Complete
• JSTOR (full text access for part of the database)

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Finding Journal Articles

• General Databases
• Academic Search Premier
• Historical Newspapers
• Lexis-Nexis Academic

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Getting to the Full Text

• Do we own it?
• Find It button
• Journal Finder
• If we dont own it, use ILL

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Questions?
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In-Class Exercise Learning a Database
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Wrap-Up

• If your topic is too broad, add another concept
  (AND)
• If your topic is too narrow, add synonyms and
  related terms (OR)
• When doing historical research, be creative
  (related people, topics, places, etc.)
• Different databases different results (try more
  than one)

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Thank You!

• Reference Help
• Phone [phone]
• E-mail langref_at_ubalt.edu
• IM ublangsdale
• HIST 300 Course Page
• http//langsdale.ubalt.edu/howto/course_websites/f
  a08/hist300_nix.htm

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Photo Credits

• Lucy Stone
• Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia
  Britannica Online. 15 Sept. 2008
   lthttp//www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9069801gt.