Choosing a topic for any paper is a process. Completing each of the following steps (in any order) should help you choose a topic that is appropriate for the assignment. We will have a library research session focused on primary sources in Simpson Library 225 on 1/27, and you need to turn this worksheet in on Thursday, 1/29, so you should be doing some work even before that library session.
- Briefly describe the library research that you did towards choosing a topic. Include at least two reference books that you used and three library search-engine subject headings that you found useful.
- I used the hand out from Jack Bales to make an advanced search on the UMW Library website, using words like “Documents, Sources, Letters, and Personal Narratives” for subject headings. I then used the “Uncovering Primary Documents” page in the History Department guide.
- Briefly describe the internet research that you did. Name at least one useful website for online archives that you surveyed (do not include simple library catalogs.)
- For online archives I utilized the library of congress as you suggested in class and the search came up with an abundance of pictures but lacked in the written documents section. So I went back to the History subject guide page and found a list of sites to search from; “Primary Documents in American History, Historic Diaries, and Eyewitness to History”.
- You should talk to at least one member of this history department about your topic and at least one of the primary sources you have identified for it. Arrive at that meeting with some initial research completed so you have something to discuss. Name that professor and provide a summary of their advice. Please have the professor sign here at your meeting:____________________________
- I have emailed Professor Mackintosh, and he said he is willing to sit with me during his office hours, so I will try and meet with him in the coming week.
- You must have a primary source for this paper. Provide any pertinent information on that primary source including website and/or call number—in other words, how you’re going to access it.
- The cprr.org website has an eight page primary source from a traveler that crossed the once endless seeming span of America in five days. I emailed, and saved the link to myself.
- Are enough secondary sources available on this topic? Briefly discuss the most recent secondary sources you have found that were published by a university press and/or academic journal.
- I do not think that secondary sources will be of any problem to me in for this historic topic. Some of the most recent works that I found throughout the sites and databases are that of Social History, referring to workload and psyche.
