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HIST 5340 - Age of Napoleon: Develop a Topic + Search Strategies

This guide contains library and web-based information for students enrolled in HIST 5340 - Age of Napoleon

Developing an Effective Research Strategy

Effectively navigating library databases and web-based tools demands a skillful search strategy involving:

  • Formulating a research topic/question
  • Identifying related terms to your key search concepts
  • Using standard search structures to broaden and narrow your search results
  • Identifying and assessing information

While there is not one right way to do a search, the strategies identified on the tabs above will improve your results. Remember searching for quality, scholarly information demands skill, practice, and a good deal of patience!

Keywords are search terms that express the core of your topic. They are essential for a successful search, particularly within library catalogs, article databases (GALILEO), and even search engines. (Never use sentence structure, such as your research question or thesis statement!) Effective keywords help you retrieve accurate and relevant resources. 

Once you've got your main search keywords, be sure to brainstorm related terms or synonyms. Good keywords broaden your search by including different terms related to your topic, making it more effective.

TIP: Use a general thesaurus, subject dictionaries, subject encyclopedias, and subject headings to help you formulate these other keywords. 

Quotation marks can be used to identify phrases. By using quotations marks, you are telling the computer to only bring back pages with the terms you typed in the exact order you typed them.

“War of the Second Coalition”
Instead of
war AND second AND coalition

“Battle of the Nile”
Instead of
battle AND Nile

 

Boolean searching involves adding or subtracting terms from your search to either broaden or narrow your search. It uses 3 terms (AND, OR, and NOT) to tell the search engine or database whether to include or eliminate certain terms.

 

Operator What it Does How to Use It
AND Find items that use BOTH keywords Napoleon AND Egypt
OR Find items that use EITHER of the keywords Battle of Waterloo OR Duke of Wellington
NOT EXCLUDES items that use the keyword Napoleon NOT Bonaparte

 

Truncation allows you to search various forms of a word by finding alternate endings. The character (*) is placed at the end of the first few letters of a search term or at the end of its root.

Archiv* retrieves
Archival, Archive, Archives, Archivist, Archivists

Napole* retrieves
Napoleon, Napoleonic, Napoleonism, Napoleonist

Nesting uses parentheses ( ) to keep concepts that are alike together, and to tell the database to look for search terms in the parentheses first. Nesting also uses the Boolean operator OR to connect like terms and the Boolean operator AND to connect the like terms to the rest of the search.

Luanda AND (trade OR commerce) AND 19th Century

Need help with your topic?

Ensure your topic is focused to allow for thorough research and writing within the assigned page limit. Covering the entirety of the Irish American experience is unrealistic. Consider framing your topic as a research question for clarity and specificity. 

  • Brainstorm. Write down questions and topics that come to mind with judgement
  • Review Course Materials and Tertiary Sources. Is there a topic or concept that stands out to you?
  • #trending. Is there a current event, problem, or debate worth digging into its historical background?
  • What are your own personal interests, hobbies, or experiences? Translate this to a topic
  • Talk to your Instructor or Librarian!
  • Always be sure your topic meets your professor's Requirements. 

  • Ask yourself when.
    Are you interested in a particular era or event?
  • Ask yourself where.
    Can you limit your inquiry geographically or by a specific location (e.g. workplace)? 
  • Ask yourself who.  
    Which demographic, group, or organization is impacted? Who is overlooked?
  • What aspect of your topic are you interested in? The causes? The effects or implications? The solutions?

Ensure that the topic is manageable and that material is available. Can you find enough material (primary and secondary sources) to support your argument?

 

Still need a bit more help?

Gather Background Info with Reference Resources

Most reference resources are considered "tertiary" source materials. These books and websites provide background information and an overview and analysis of a subject or concept. Tertiary sources have been compiled from secondary sources. Unlike a secondary sourcebook or journal article, tertiary sources are not intended to be read in their entirety. Instead, they are most often used to clarify terms and concepts about a particular topic. Tertiary sources include:

  • Almanacs, Yearbooks, and Factbooks
  • Bibliographies
  • Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
  • Indexes and Abstracts
  • Manuals
  • Textbooks
Subjects: History