“American History Paper
Pathfinder ”

Search Strategy:
Choose either Stage 1 or 2 depending upon whether you have chosen a topic for your paper.

Stage 1
You Do Not Have a Topic

•  Browse through the books and Internet sites listed below for topic ideas. Photocopy appropriate pages from the books that interest you.
R973.016 Sha Sharp, Harold S. Footnotes to American History
R909 D922 Thackeray, Frank W. (Ed.) Events That Changed the World In the Nineteenth Century
R909.82 E93 Thackeray, Frank W. (Ed.) Events That Changed the Twentieth Century
R973.03 Foner, Eric & Garraty, John A. (Eds.) The Reader's Companion to American History

•  Click on the Eagle Eyes: NCS Web Library . Click on the History category. Click on the subcategory of History that interests you. Example, United States History 1800-1899 or United States History 1939-1949 . Look at some of the Internet sites for paper ideas.

•  Click on the Eagle Eyes: NCS Web Library . In the keyword box, type in the words < primary sources >. Scroll down to the History section until you reach the subcategories for United States History. Click on sites that interest you for paper ideas.

Stage 2
You have a Research Paper Topic

•  Underline the key words of you topic. Write down several synonyms or alternate search terms that describe your topic.
Example:
Vietnam War
Vietnam Conflict

•  Go to the Upper School Library Homepage and click on Britannica. Type the keywords you underlined into the Britannica search box.
Example: Vietnam War
Read the first article that appears. Notice the hyperlinks in the article. Click on ones that interest you and make note of them. You will use these hyperlinked search words to help narrow your search of other databases and the library online catalog.
Example: France, Ho Chi Minh, Geneva Accords, South Vietnam, Gulf of Tonkin Revolution, Viet Cong, Ngo Dinh Diem

•  Click on Back. Set the Britannica search button to search Britannica's Internet Guide . Print out the results and save it for later.

•  Click on the Library Online Catalog . In the keyword search box, type in the broadest search term.
Example: keywords = Vietnam War
If you retrieve more than 5 titles, choose one of the Britannica's hyperlinked key words that interested you and type it in on the second keyword search line. Click and place a black dot by the word and.
Example: Broad Search = Vietnam War
Narrower Search =
Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh
Vietnam and France

•  Check out all of the non-fiction books that information about both of your search terms. Request St. Alban book by filling out the courier sheet by the public computer terminals.

REALITY CHECK:
You should have the following information by now:

•  Britannica Overview of your topic.

•  List of Recommended Internet Sites

•  All relevant Books from NCS and St. Albans libraries

•  Look at the Table of Contents and Indexes of all of the books you have checked out. Write down the numbers of relevant pages. Photocopy them. Remember to record the correct bibliographic information from each book that you photocopy.

•  Narrow your topic to a paper that will be approximately 8 pages in length.
Example:
Broad Topic - Vietnam
Less broad - Vietnam War
Narrower - Vietnam War and Ho Chi Minh
Narrowest - The Role of Ho Chi Minh in the Vietnam War

•  Read only those sections of books, articles, etc that pertain to the narrowest topic. As you read, note where the author of each book obtained his/her material. Do they refer to letters, documents, government reports, personal papers, diaries, laws, etc.? Search for these documents in the online catalogs of academic libraries of American University, Georgetown University, etc.
Hint: Go to the NCS Internet Database and click on Local Library Links

•  Perform a specific search in Altavista using phrase searching and + and -.
Example: +”Ho Chi Minh” +”Vietnam War” +”primary sources” + “Ho Chi Minh” +Vietnam +”primary sources”

•  Consult NCS On-Site Primary Sources
Lexis Nexis – Contains New York Times and Washington Post going back to 1969 and 1977 respectively
Jackdaw Kits – shelved in a file cabinet by Ms. Spring's desk, these kits contain facsimiles of primary sources about different periods of world and American History.
Accessible Archives – Primary source materials from 18 th and 19 th century American periodicals.

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