You have several topics that Prof. Ball allows you to choose from:
Once you have chosen your topic, it's time to develop keywords. Watch the video above. It explains what keywords are and how to write them. Write down your own keywords for your topic. Consider what words might appear in information sources for your topic. For example, if you are researching camp wives during the American revolution, consider these related words:
I want to emphasize that when you are searching for primary sources, it will be especially important to search for the words used by the people during the American Revolution. There were camp wives on both sides of the American Revolution, but the people who lived during that time and wrote about their experiences didn't necessarily call them that. That's why, when I searched for primary sources on this topic, I found the first three items in the bulleted list to be far more useful as search terms.
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. For example, some of your sources for research in the American Revolution may include
Below you can find a list of websites which contain primary sources for the study of United States history.
For one of your assignments, you must have primary sources from indigenous peoples from the early 19th Century. Here are two ebooks that are collections of writings of Native Americans from this time period.
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.
Secondary sources are sources of information written by people who are citing primary (or even other secondary sources) as their sources of information.
That's a complicated definition, so let's simplify it. Historical books and articles written by people who weren't actually there are secondary sources.
Here are some good databases for finding secondary sources about historical topics.
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.
The video above shows you how to search the database ProQuest EBook Central.
