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HIST 200: Find Sources

Search for Sources

The MC Library has access to different kinds of search tools: 

  • RaptorSearch searches across most of the information that you can access through the MC Library. Find books, e-books, streaming audio and video, and DVDs and CDs, as well as articles and other electronic resources from databases available through the library.
  • Databases are collections of articles, videos, images, or other types of sources. Some databases cover only one research area, like psychology or English. Other databases cover multiple research areas and are called multidisciplinary databases. Some databases are based on source type, like photographs or videos, instead of research area.

Use the tabs in the Search Tools box on this page to find suggested search tools to use for a variety of types of sources. 

MC students, faculty, and staff can access all of our search tools and online resources from on- or off-campus.

Research Skills & Tips:

Unlike Google, library databases can't understand an entire sentence. You'll need to break your topic down into the most important ideas: the keywords. Keywords are individual words or short phrases that represent the main ideas in your topic, thesis, or research question. 

Example Question: What was the role of women during the industrial revolution of America? 

Keywords: women role, American industrial revolution 

After you've identified your main ideas and some keywords to start with, think of additional search terms for each concept. These can be synonyms, related ideas, broader terms, or narrower terms. Since a database will match only what you type, using different terms for similar ideas can help you find more articles. 

Example Search Terms: 

  • women role: women rights, feminism, feminist growth, female workforce
  • industrial revolution: late 18th century, early 19th century, industrialization, manufacturing development 
  • America: American, United States, U.S. 

Click on the research issue you're having below to see tips for addressing it:

I'm Not Finding Enough Sources

I'm Finding Too Many Sources

I'm Finding Irrelevant Sources

None of These Tips Solved My Research Issue


Not Finding Enough Sources

  • Type the word OR between related search terms to get results containing either term. Put the related search terms in parentheses.
    • Example: "industrial revolution" and (women or female) and workforce
    • Example: government and regulate and (internet or "social media")
    Diagram shows social media & internet highlighted
  • Use a truncation character (often the asterisk, *, but it can vary by search tool), which is a symbol added to the root of a word to tell the search tool that you want all forms of that word. 
    • Example: elect* will search for elect, election, elector, electoral, electorate, electing, etc.
  • Use a wildcard character (often the hash sign, #, but it can vary by search tool), which is a symbol that replaces any character in a word.
    • Example: wom#n will search for woman or women.

Finding Too Many Sources

  • Type the word AND between the main ideas in your search to get results containing all ideas.
    • Example: women role and  "industrial revolution"
    • Example: government and regulate and internet and "free speech"
    Diagram shows overlap between gov't & free speech

Finding Irrelevant Sources

  • Type the word NOT before a search term that you do not want your search results to contain.
    • Example: election not "united states"
    Diagram shows social media & internet highlighted
  • Type quotation marks around a specific phrase to get search results that contain only that exact phrase.
    • Example: "social media"
  • Use the search tool's filters to target search results that will meet your needs. You'll find filters on the search results screen. The exact location and filtering options varies by search tool.
    • Example: use a publication date filter to find sources published in the last five years.
    • Example: use a source type filter to find only articles or only videos.

If the options above did not help you find useful results, you may want to:

  • change your search terms,
  • select a different search tool,
  • make your topic broader or narrower, or
  • get research help from a librarian.

Research Skills & Tips:

After you've selected your search tool, identified keywords, and fixed research issues, it's time to choose your sources. It is common to get more search results than you will use, so you must evaluate the sources you find to choose the best ones for your research.

Start by scanning the search results to locate sources that fit your research question or need. The search results page will include information about each source, such as the title, year, and abstract, to help you determine its relevance.

Once you've found a source you'd like to use, evaluate its credibility by considering the evidence, source, context, audience, purpose, and execution of the source. Learn more on the Evaluate Information and Fake News guide linked below.


Research Skills & Tips:

Search Tools for HIST 200

Academic articles, sometimes also called journal articles or scholarly articles, are relatively short publications that academic researchers use to communicate new findings and ideas to other scholars. Articles are compiled in scholarly journals, which are essentially academic magazines that come out on a schedule. Many journal articles are peer-reviewed, which means they've gone through a formal review process before being published. 

When & Why to Use Articles:

  • You need information based on research and expertise.
  • You need detailed information that focuses on a narrow topic.
  • You need to find peer-reviewed material or ensure that the information you find is accurate.

Search for Articles for HIST 200:

  • Gale In Context: U.S. History
    • Login Required
    Best Bet
    Covers U.S. history, including some full-text articles from leading scholarly publications, primary sources, images, maps & charts for the study of world history.
  • Gale In Context: World History
    • Login Required
    Best Bet
    Covers world history, including some full-text articles from leading scholarly publications, primary sources, images, maps & charts for the study of world history.
  • African American Experience
    • Login Required
    Featuring perspectives from African American scholars and historians, The African American Experience brings voice and context to the lived experiences of African Americans in U.S. history. Expertly curated primary and secondary sources illustrate diverse threads of African American social, political, and cultural history. Contains primary documents, peer-reviewed scholarly essays, images, including 1,500 photographs.
  • African American Historical Serials Collection
    • Login Required
    Features 173 periodicals spanning from 1816 through 1922. The periodicals in this collection include newspapers and magazines, in addition to reports and annuals from various African American organizations, including churches and educational and service institutions.
  • American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Part I–V
    • Login Required
    Collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876. Common themes depicted include industrialization, western expansion, and regional political differences.
  • Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part I, Part II
    • Login Required
    Collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other topical areas.
  • Black Thought and Culture
    • Login Required
    Contains 1,303 sources with 1,210 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans.
  • Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
    Provides access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages.
  • Daily Life through History
    • Login Required
    Cross-disciplinary resource that supports history, social studies, English, and language students, and moves from past to present, providing context for contemporary life and culture. Includes Daily Life in American and World Cultures Today.
  • Gale OneFile: Military And Intelligence
    • Login Required
    Provides access to scholarly journals, magazines, and reports covering all aspects of the past and present military affairs. Updated annually, this resource contains content supporting key subject areas such as, governmental policies, the socioeconomic effects of war, the structure of the armed forces, and more.
  • Gale OneFile: U.S. History
    • Login Required
    Provides access to scholarly journals and magazines useful to both novice historians as well as advanced academic researchers. Updated daily, this resource offers coverage of events in U.S. history and scholarly work established in the field.
  • Historical New York Times (1851-2020)
    • Login Required
    Includes full text from the New York Daily Times (1851-1857) and the New York Times from 1857 to 2020. For current New York Times articles, use the ProQuest Newspapers database.
  • Historical Washington Post (1877-2007)
    • Login Required
    Articles from the Washington Post and the Times Herald from 1877 to 2007. For current articles from the Washington Post, use the ProQuest Newspapers database.
  • JSTOR
    • E-Book
    • Login Required
    JSTOR includes archives of nearly three thousand academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. Journals are included from volume 1, issue 1 and include previous and related titles; the most recently published issues (past 3-5 years) are not available.
  • Military & Government Collection
    • Login Required
    Provides current news pertaining to all branches of the military and full text articles from 396 periodicals; indexes 503 titles.
  • National Geographic Virtual Library
    • Login Required
    This collection brings together a complete archive of National Geographic magazines along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images and videos. This Virtual Library includes: National Geographic Magazine Archive, 1888-1994; National Geographic Magazine Archive, 1995-Current; National Geographic: People, Animals, and the World; and National Geographic Kids.
  • Oxford African American Studies Center
    • Login Required
    Provides more than 8,000 articles by top scholars in the field. The core content includes Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; and African American National Biography. In addition to the full-text of these works, the Center draws on other key resources from Oxford's reference program, including the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, the Oxford Companion to Black British History, and selected articles from other major reference titles.
  • ProQuest Primary Sources Collection
    • E-Book
    • Login Required
    • Video
    Collection of over 160 multidisciplinary primary resources, including books, journals, dissertations, primary-source documents, and videos.
  • Smithsonian Collections Online
    • Login Required
    Includes access to the Air & Space and Smithsonian Magazine Archive (including current issues), as well as digitized primary source materials from the Smithsonian Institution in two collections -- Trade Literature and the Merchandizing of Industry & World's Fairs and Expositions: Visions of Tomorrow.
  • Social Justice Suite (HeinOnline)
    Multidisciplinary resource covering social justice issues including civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, gun regulation and legislation, and the history of slavery in the U.S. and English-speaking world.
  • Women and Social Movements Scholar's Edition
    • Login Required
    Intended to serve as a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history, organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. The database contains 75,000 pages of additional primary source materials related to the women's movement in the United States.
  • Women's Studies Archive: Voice and Vision
    • Login Required
    Archival collections concerning women’s history from across the globe. Content includes evolution of feminism, women’s political activism, and female-authored literature and writings.
  • Women's Studies International
    • Login Required
    Bibliographic database covering the core disciplines in women's studies and feminist research. It supports many fields of study, including sociology, history, international relations, humanities and more.

Author Information:

  • Sometimes information on the book jacket will give you clues about how to find more information.  
  • Start your research early, and pick two or three books to look at, just as soon as you have the assignment.  Reduce your stress level by picking a book that you already know has author credentials available.  
  • If you really want to read a particular book and can't find any information published about the author, you could possibly locate the author and interview him or her, if he or she is still living.

Search for Author Information for HIST 200:

When & Why to Use Scholarly Books:

  • You need to understand a complex topic (these are easier to read than journal articles)
  • You need very in-depth analysis of a topic
  • You need a broad understanding of one or more topics
  • You need a summary of existing research on a topic

Where to Go in the Library for Books on History:

General books on U.S. History are organized chronologically in the section labeled "E" and "F".   

American history from the colonial period through 1865 is in sections E186 to E655.

Browse the library shelves in these call number areas to find materials relating to the history of the U.S. and its regions.

E 186 - 199          Colonial history (1607-1775)

E 201 - 298          Revolution, 1775-1783 

E 300 - 453          Revolution to the Civil War, 1775/1783-1861

E 456 - 655          Civil War period, 1861-1865

F 1 - 975              United States Local History 

Search for Books and E-Books for HIST 200:

  • ACLS Humanities E-Book
    • E-Book
    • Login Required
    The ACLS Humanities E-Book Project is a collaboration of thirty-one learned societies, over 100 contributing publishers, and the Michigan Publishing division at the University of Michigan Library. The result is an online, fully searchable collection of high-quality books in history, recommended and reviewed by historians and featuring unlimited multi-user access. These titles are also accessible through RaptorSearch.
  • African American Experience
    • Login Required
    Featuring perspectives from African American scholars and historians, The African American Experience brings voice and context to the lived experiences of African Americans in U.S. history. Expertly curated primary and secondary sources illustrate diverse threads of African American social, political, and cultural history. Contains primary documents, peer-reviewed scholarly essays, images, including 1,500 photographs.
  • American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Part I–V
    • Login Required
    Collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876. Common themes depicted include industrialization, western expansion, and regional political differences.
  • American National Biography Online
    • Login Required
    American National Biography (ANB) offers portraits of more than 17,400 men and women whose lives have shaped the nation.
  • Black Thought and Culture
    • Login Required
    Contains 1,303 sources with 1,210 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans.
  • CQ Press Political Reference Suite
    • Login Required
    Integrates many of CQ Press's reference titles on government and politics. Titles include Congress and the Nation, Historic Documents Series, Political Handbook of the World, Politics in America, Supreme Court Yearbook, Vital Statistics on American Politics, and the Washington Information Directory.
  • Encyclopedia of American Studies
    • Login Required
    Published by Johns Hopkins University Press for the American Studies Association (ASA), the Encyclopedia of American Studies covers the history, philosophy, arts, and cultures of the United States in relation to the world, from pre-colonial days to the present, from various perspectives and the global American Studies movement.
  • Gale in Context: Biography
    • Login Required
    Biography in Context is a comprehensive database of biographical information on over 340,000 people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas. It combines more than 435,000 biographies from over 1,000 volumes of more than 135 respected Gale sources.
  • JSTOR
    • E-Book
    • Login Required
    JSTOR includes archives of nearly three thousand academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. Journals are included from volume 1, issue 1 and include previous and related titles; the most recently published issues (past 3-5 years) are not available.
  • Latino American Experience
    • Login Required
    A full-text digital resource exploring the history and culture of U.S. Latinos.
  • Oxford African American Studies Center
    • Login Required
    Provides more than 8,000 articles by top scholars in the field. The core content includes Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; and African American National Biography. In addition to the full-text of these works, the Center draws on other key resources from Oxford's reference program, including the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, the Oxford Companion to Black British History, and selected articles from other major reference titles.
  • ProQuest Primary Sources Collection
    • E-Book
    • Login Required
    • Video
    Collection of over 160 multidisciplinary primary resources, including books, journals, dissertations, primary-source documents, and videos.
  • Social Justice Suite (HeinOnline)
    Multidisciplinary resource covering social justice issues including civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, gun regulation and legislation, and the history of slavery in the U.S. and English-speaking world.

Research Skills & Tips:

Articles and Book Reviews in Academic Journals:

Also known as scholarly articles, or academic articles. Some journal articles are "peer reviewed," which means they've gone through an extra review process before being published. 

When & Why to Use Journal Articles:

  • Information is based on research and expertise
  • Information is detailed and focused on a narrow topic
  • The peer-review process (mostly) ensures that the information is accurate
  • They add to a growing understanding of a topic by contributing new ideas 

Search for Articles and Book Reviews for HIST 200:

Publications Information:

You can find very short reviews (usually one paragraph) in Books in Print, but these are not from scholarly journals. If you cannot find a review anywhere else, sometimes a reference to a review is listed on Title Reviews page in Books in Print.

Reviews from magazines like Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, or School Library Journal are intended for librarians and booksellers that are purchasing books for their library or bookstore.

Investigate the Historical Period in More Sources:

Newspapers are another good source of articles and reviews on current topics. 

Primary sources are original materials from people who have a direct connection with the event being investigated. Examples include speeches, diaries, letters, images, artwork, interviews, music, or other items created during the time of the event. 

When & Why to Use Primary Sources

  • Scholarly research should be based on facts and observation. Primary sources bring you into contact with the first­hand accounts of an event.
  • Primary sources expose you to multiple perspectives on issues of the past and present. Using primary sources encourages critical thinking and analysis in comparing sources that represent differing points of view.

Search for Primary Sources for HIST 200:

The MC Library has access to streaming videos and audio (as well as DVDs and CDs). You can find documentaries, educational videos, and mainstream movies. 

When & Why to Use Videos:

  • You need to include an expert's point of view, and a documentary on your topic includes an interview 
  • You are doing a presentation and need to include a visual

Search for Videos and Media for HIST 200:

  • American History in Video
    • Login Required
    • Video
    Best Bet
    Includes 2,000 total hours of streaming video content and more than 5,000 titles. The collection allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries.
  • African American Experience
    • Login Required
    Featuring perspectives from African American scholars and historians, The African American Experience brings voice and context to the lived experiences of African Americans in U.S. history. Expertly curated primary and secondary sources illustrate diverse threads of African American social, political, and cultural history. Contains primary documents, peer-reviewed scholarly essays, images, including 1,500 photographs.
  • Kanopy
    • Login Required
    • Video
    TIP: Use Chrome or Firefox when accessing videos for best viewing experience. Collection of streaming videos in all genres - from documentaries to movies to training videos.
  • ProQuest Primary Sources Collection
    • E-Book
    • Login Required
    • Video
    Collection of over 160 multidisciplinary primary resources, including books, journals, dissertations, primary-source documents, and videos.

Find Sources

"Find Sources." Magnifying Glass.

This page will help you choose where and how to search for your sources. As you search, use the tips on this page to help you evaluate each source you find.