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HIS 300

A guide to HIS 300 research worksheets.

Bibliography and historiography

Bibliography and historiography are important segments of history research.  Both types of research may be published as full books, journal articles, or websites.  Reviewing bibliographies is often one of the quickest ways to get started on research on a historical topic.  Why spend hours searching in databases when other scholars have already found the sources and are listing them for you?  A historiography will give you an overview of the history of scholarship on a topic, usually with a focus on changing approaches/methodologies.

Note that full-length book bibliographies used to be a very common part of history scholarship.  This isn't true anymore, so if you look for bibliographies in WorldCat.org, you may find mostly older ones (good for classic sources, but not current scholarship).

Books (WorldCat.org)

If you want to look for a book-length bibliography or historiography, try Worldcat.org.   Put in your keywords, plus add the word bibliography or historiography to the search.

Journal article bibliographies

For a bibliography or historiography published as an article, use the same databases you would use for finding other history journal articles.  Just like with books, search for keywords, plus add the word bibliography or historiography to the search.

Web bibliographies

Sometimes either scholars or just people who love history will develop a bibliography or historiography on a favorite topic and publish it on the web.  I've seen some really well developed bibliography pages on Wikipedia, for instance.  Same rules apply, search for your topic, but add the word bibliography or historiography to the search.

I would start by limiting the search to either site:.edu (to check for things posted by professors on their college/university site) or site:.org (museums, libraries, historical societies, and Wikipedia).

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