This guide is meant to help you through your HIS 320 course. Click through the tabs at the top to find books, articles and primary sources. The resources listed here are by no means exhaustive but should provide you some good starting points as you go through the semester.
If you get stuck please feel free to contact me, I'm here to help!
Good luck!
~Tara
The following are some basic Tips and Tricks to try to make searching more efficient and bring you better results. Most databases use these functions.
Boolean Operators and Wildcards
AND – means you want both terms in your results; tends to narrow results’ list
OR – means you want one or the other terms in your results – use with synonyms; tends to broaden results’ list
NOT – use when you are getting a reoccurring term that you are not interested in
Wildcards
? or * -- used to expand your results without having to type in multiple words; different databases use these differently. The library catalog uses the ? but some databases use the *. Play around with them to see how your results change.
Ex: wom?n – will return results for woman and women
Ex: Nazi* - will return Nazi, Nazis, and Nazism
“quotes” – use to search for an exact phrase
Ex: “Weimar Republic”
Subject Headings, Subjects, and Descriptors
Subject headings are created by librarians to describe exactly what the materials are about. They connect materials with similar topics or themes together. They are called different things depending on the catalog or database but most have them. Click on them to find more materials on your topic.
Some helpful ones for this class:
Reformation Reformation--England Reformation--Germany Reformation--Italy Reformation--Sources
Renaissance Renaissance--England Renaissance--France Renaissance--Germany Renaissance--Italy Reniassance--Sources