Research Guides: US History Overview: Start Here

Background Information

You might need to learn a little bit more about your topic before you really start researching it.

Gathering some background information can help you:

Become more familiar with your topic
Identify keywords you can use for searching
Think of ways you can refine and focus your topic

Try these encyclopedias for more background information (opens in a new tab):

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of over 3,500 published reference works from more than 100 publishers in a variety of major subjects, including general and subject dictionaries as well as encyclopedias.
TexShare
CQ Electronic Encyclopedia of American Government
Oxford Reference Library This link opens in a new window
230+ in-depth, specialized titles from Oxford University Press's award-winning Encyclopedias and Companions, and a selection of partner publishers' scholarly works.
TCCD

Start Here

Where do I start?

Start with your assignment

Read over your assignment and make sure you understand what it is you need to do. See if you can answer the following questions:

What is the assignment? Are you creating a presentation? Are you writing an essay? If so, what type of essay (descriptive, cause-effect, etc.)?
Did your instructor provide a topic or do you have to come up with one yourself?
What types of works (journal articles, books, etc.) can you use as sources and how many sources do you need?
What style do you need to use to cite your sources?

Choosing a Topic

Where to get ideas

If you are picking your own topic, you might get ideas from:

Class materials or discussions
Current events or news
Topics you are interested in

Check your assignment to see if there are any guidelines related to what your topic can be. Check with your instructor if you have questions about whether a certain topic is acceptable for an assignment.

Other Suggested Resources

Database links open in a new tab.

Opposing Viewpoints: Gale In Context This link opens in a new window
consists of a collection of viewpoint articles, topic overviews, government and organizational statistics, and an assortment of multmedia clips from academic journals, magazines, and other types of publications.
TexShare
SIRS Issues Researcher This link opens in a new window
SIRS Issues Researcher delivers general reference and contains thousands of full text articles exploring social, scientific, health, historic, business, economic, political and global issues selected from over 1,700 domestic and international publications. Beginning August 1, 2019, SIRS Issues Researcher also provides content from SIRS Renaissance (information related to architecture, design, culture, literature, multimedia, music, performing and visual arts, philosophy and religion) and SIRS Government Reporter (current and historic government documents, landmark and recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, information about federal departments, agencies, elected leaders and more).
TCCD

Keywords

When choosing keywords to use for searching, think about your topic. What are the main ideas that you are interested in? What words could be used to describe these ideas?

Example:

US History

Texas History

1941-1945

Revolutionary War

Abraham Lincoln

General Search Strategies

Use an
asterisk

Known as truncation, using an asterisk at the end of part of your search word will pull different endings, searching for many different keywords at one time.

Example:

Dogfight*