Native American Research Project, U.S. History, March/April 2021 (Farquhar): Home

When doing research, we strongly recommend that you always start with authoritative sources and library resources (library databases and books, if you have access to physical books)

1)  Brainstorm keywords that you might use to find resources

• Consider synonyms, similar terms, or related terms, all which provide different ways to search
• Think of broader terms, or in some cases, more specific terms

2)  Start your research with authoritative sources

• Library databases (see a list of suggested library databases in the block below this)
• Books in our library (if you're on campus the weeks of March 8th-12th, March 22nd-26th and on April 8th, you can come to the library to borrow books)

3) Please do not start your research by doing a Google search or by going to general websites

• You should always start with authoritative sources
• If you have searched the library databases and you can't find information, think about the keywords you are using
• If you know you're using the correct keywords, but still are not finding information, you can contact Ms. Jewell or Ms. Burke for recommendations and/or assistance
• If you still need additional information after trying all the above, and if you choose to use a website, do not include it in your research unless you have accurately evaluated the website, and are able to point to specific evidence why the website is reliable and authoritative 

When you search library databases, don't search in complete sentences.  Databases are not like Google.  

• Use a couple of keywords, combined with the word AND:
  • "American Indians" and resettlement
• Don't put more than three keywords together in the same search 
• If you want to search a phrase, it helps to put quotation marks around it:
  • "boarding schools"
  • "Battle of Wounded Knee"
     

Library database page on the library website.  Recommended library databases that may be helpful, depending on your topic are:

• The ABC-Clio History database The American Indian Experience (The American Mosaic: The American Indian Experience) 
  • Watch a video on how to access The American Indian Experience 
  • For better results, put quotation marks around phrases when searching
  • ABC-Clio is the publisher name; each of the 8 databases within that ABC-Clio link have their own name. The information in these databases are original content to the database, and not published in print
     
• EBSCO Discovery Search: searches almost all of our library databases at once. This can retrieve an overwhelming amount of results, so if you're having difficulties finding useful information via the EBSCO Discovery Search, try searching a single database instead of all at once
   
• EBSCO Ebooks Academic edition (ebooks)
   
• JSTOR (scholarly journal articles)
   
• Academic Search Ultimate (magazine, newspapers, and some scholarly journal articles)

You learned about the difference between primary and secondary sources during your research project for your English class this year, when you met with Ms. Burke for library lessons.

As you work on your research, if you need to refamiliarize yourself with what a primary source is, you can check out the following resources:

• YouTube video explaining the difference between primary and secondary sources 
   
• Examples of primary and secondary sources
   
• Additional primary versus secondary research information resources from the subject guide Ms. Burke created for your English class (the two links above are also found on Ms. Burke's subject guide)

You always need to cite what sources you used in your research.

The MLA page on our library website has more details on how to cite sources, including works cited sample sheets, as well as a link to citation help from Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL).

You might find it helpful to complete a MLA Template to create a citation for each source you used for this project. 

As you create your citations, we know that some library databases give sample citations at the bottom of the page.  Sometimes that information is incomplete or incorrect (for example, the citations provided by many of the EBSCO databases are incorrect).  Use the information from the sample citation to help create your own version of the citation for the source. Don't copy and paste the citation provided from the database into a Word document. 

If you are citing a source in a library database, almost all of the databases have information that was originally in print.  On the MLA Practice Template, you put all the original information about the book in the first section (book, reference source, scholarly journal, magazine, image), and then the information about the library database you used would be in the 2nd half of the template (where all the information in the first part of the template is repeated). (Two exceptions are Britannica School and all of the databases published by ABC-Clio.  Content from those databases were never in print, so all the info would be in container 1)

If you found an article in an online database, the additional information you need to include after you cite all the information about the print source is:

• the title of the container (database)
• the publisher of the source (database publisher)
• the date of the database
• the URL of the database (if required by your teacher).  Use a short version of the URL (typically up to the .com, .org, etc.).  Do not include http:// in the URL

After you have created a citation for each of your sources, you can create a works cited list based on the MLA Templates you filled out. Type out each MLA Template entry in a Word document in the exact order as written on the template, complete with punctuation at the end of each line.  Then, format the works cited list by making sure it has the following:

• The entire works cited list is double spaced, with one inch margins on each side
• The heading Works Cited is centered at the top of the works cited list
• The entries in the works cited list are in alphabetical order
• The first line of each citation is flush to the left, then each subsequent line of the citation is indented

You can download a copy of the MLA Template to your computer using the link above this block

Below are four examples of a MLA Template and the labeled pages so you can see an example of sources cited using the MLA Template.