The purpose of this guide is to familiarize you with finding historical research resources in the library and on the internet for your prospectus and research project.

	Getting Started
	Books
	Articles
	Primary Sources
	Searching the Internet
	Citing Your Sources
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Getting Started

Think about what you know on a topic that interests you and meets the requirements for this assignment. Look for terms in your notes and readings. Before committing to a topic, you should do some 'survey' research to be sure appropriate and sufficient resources are available. This is possible to do though the library catalog by searching for either a person or a topic. Doing this type of simple search will bring back plenty of material in both the primary and secondary categories.

You have a choice in your topic focus: Chinese in America or Americans in China. One looks at the experience of Chinese immigrants and primary sources will be through immigrants eyes and those concerned with them. The other topic is the experience of Americans as tourists, explorers, military or missionaries in China and primary materials will generally be written by members of these groups.

As an example, you are interested in the experience of American missionaries in China. A search in the catalog on missionar* (more about the asterick in class) and 'China' will retrieve a variety of titles, but in looking at them, you will see that not all are on the experience of American missionaries. 

• Stuart, John Leighton, 1876-1962 was a missionary in China, note the subject heading for a specific person is phrased in last name, first name order.
• You also want related materials on the topic, not just those about one person since there is a great deal of background and related material, so try other keyword searches and browse likely results to find the following:
  • Missionaries -- China -- Biography
  • Missions, American -- China -- Shansi Province
  • Missionaries -- United States -- Diaries
  • China -- Church History -- 19th Century
  • Baptists -- Missions -- China -- History

Historians rely heavily on primary documents in their research and you MUST use primary sources as your main research sources. For how to identify a primary document, click here. Following are some examples for the topic of missionaries in  in China:

• Diaries, letters and reports by missionaries
• Statistics and population maps 
• Newspaper editorials and reports on treatment of missionaries in China
• Look at films, broadsides and advertising media if your time period would include such (or paintings and other art for earlier)

Books

Any well researched project uses books to support your thinking and writing. There are two kinds of books you can investigate in the library--reference and circulating. To find them, either do KEYWORD searches using terms from your class readings and notes, TITLE searches for specific works, or search for AUTHORS who have been identified as authorities on the topic.

Finding Books

CSUSM Library Catalog Do a KEYWORD search on the topic by typing the word or phrase in the search box. Since keywords can have multiple definitions and therefore, uses, once you locate a useful title, examine the SUBJECTS for precise 'labels' to identify your topic. While looking at each item, note authors who are writing on your topic and the call number for browsing the stacks. A specialized search offered by CSUSM is the Genre Search. This allows searching by language, material format and specialized content. For a tutorial, click here.

Example of Catalog Screen

San Diego Circuit This shows materials you may borrow from other San Diego County universities. Either search from the CSUSM catalog by clicking on OTHER CATALOGS in the beginning search screen, or you can extend your CSUSM catalog search to Circuit by clicking on the CIRCUIT button towards the top of the screen. If you are already looking at a specific item in the catalog, Circuit will only search for that item, so be sure to work from the keyword search results list. You may request the item online to be delivered to CSUSM for you.

Reference Books (in library use)
These are works like encyclopedias, directories, and collections of reviews that do not circulate from the library. They may be quick overviews or in-depth studies and are frequently useful for short facts or overviews, birthdates, statistics, timelines and bibliographies of sources.

Circulating Books (check out and take home)
Find books on your topic by using KEYWORD or subject searches. Some books are now available in full text through the catalog. When you see a WWW connection offered, click on that link to read the book online (access is in 2 hour increments.) You can find primary document collections in book form, especially correspondence, diaries and journals.

Other Resources  

Newspapers	More recent issues available through the Research Databases, older on microfilm.	Primary source reports on events, CSUSM's collection starts with the mid-1800s.
History Subject Guide	Portal to online resources brought to you by CSUSM
Microforms (fiche and film)	Located on Kellogg's 4th floor, besides newspapers,  there are the Evans Bibliography and government publications	The Evans is particularly important for its index and access to Colonial and Early American documents published before 1800.

 

Journal Articles

History journals include some of the latest research in the field and can be very helpful in your project but are secondary sources, not primary documents when doing this project. They're a good source for finding very detailed information on your topic. To find articles, you need to start with a research database and preferably one that indexes scholarly sources as they are based on careful research and peer-review prior to publishing. For more on scholarly sources, click here. Some databases do not offer full text of the articles. Use the button to check our other resources for full text.

NOTE: most databases do not cover material published prior to the early 1980's, so you may need to use print resources to do some verification or earlier research.

Most Useful

Historical Abstracts
Abstracts of journal articles covering world history, from pre-history to the present. This database covers materials published since the 1970s, but addresses prehistory through modern times.

America: History and Life
Abstracts of journal articles covering US and Canadian history, from pre-history to the present. This database covers materials published since the 1964-on, but covers history from prehistory through modern times. 

JSTOR
Full-text. Contains complete full-text back files (EXCEPT for the latest five years) of core scholarly journals in such areas as sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American studies, Asian studies and others. This collection offers articles published since the late 1800's.

Project MUSE
Full text. Scholarly article collection supplementing the holdings on many titles in JSTOR by offering more currently published materials.

Also Useful

Academic Search Premier (via EbscoHost)
Full-text. A multi-disciplinary database offering full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles. Use peer-reviewed limiter to focus on more scholarly materials.

Accessible Archives
A good source for 19th Century American History; includes newspapers on the Civil War and African Americans as well as Godey's Ladys Book magazine.

History E-Book Project
Full-text. Approximately 760 full-text e-books in the area of history. Each title is also included in the library catalog.

 Oxford English Dictionary
A guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It includes etymological analysis, listings of variant spellings, and shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet
 

Also Useful (Specific Subject Areas Within History)

Military & Government Collection
Provides full text for hundreds of military related periodicals and general interest magazines.

Womens Studies International
Includes over 204,000 records drawn from a variety of essential women's studies databases. This database is not full text or SFX-enabled.  See the librarian for help in locating resources mentioned in this database.

 

Primary Sources on the Internet

A primary source is a document or artifact that reflects the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer of an actual historical event. They include diaries, letters, memos, and books and commentary published at the time of the event. These are valuable tools in verifying the validity of information on another site.

A well-done site that discusses finding primary sources on the web, providing examples and a selection of sites is  "Using Primary Sources on the Web" site. This is brought to you by the members of the the American Library Association's Reference & Users Service Association/History Section.

Many internet sites exist providing access to a mix of primary and secondary sources. For more on primary sources, click here. Here are some of the best on the internet.

• American Memory (correspondence and digitized documents, maps and photographs)
• Chinese American Contribution to Transcontinental Railroad
• Firstgov.gov (searches only US government sites, including military history)
• History of Chinese Americans in California (National Park Service)
• Internet History Sourcebooks Project (Fordham University) provides access to the Medieval Studies Sourcebook and Modern History Sourcebook which cover a variety of geographic regions
• NARA (National Archives and Records Administration has digitized material and if you wish to visit in person, a branch in Laguna Nigel)
• Repostories of Primary Sources (collection of a wide variety of links)
• United Nations (slowly digitizing more current materials such as treaties, see the Dag Hammarskjold Library collections also)
• WWW-VL History Central Catalogue

Searching the Internet

There are ways to search the internet quickly and effectively. Use Advanced or Expert Search whenever possible to focus your results and eliminate sites you can't use like those in languages you cannot read.

Keep in mind the US Government has collected and studied other nations and using Firstgov.gov as a search engine for federally-generated information can retrieve a wealth of not only American, but international history and primary sources.

Finding the better sites

• Limit your searches to high quality domains: .edu (university servers), .org (museums and associations), .mil (military servers) or .gov (US and state governments).
• Use appropriate language to accurately describe your topic.
• Spell names or phrases accurately--be aware of alternate spellings used in earlier time periods.
• Look for bibliographies or references to the works used for the site's contents.
• Know your topic!
• Evaluate for bias or incomplete information

Citing Your Sources

As you write your paper, you'll need to cite passages and ideas from the sources you've found.  In order to cite your resources properly, you need to follow the style guide used by for this class, the Chicago Manual of Style.

Chicago manual of style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003 CSUSM Citation Style Guides Diana Hacker's Guide to History: Documenting Sources KnightCite citation generator for Chicago style Library Copies (REFERENCE Z253 .U69 2003)

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