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W131 Elementary Composition


Historical Photographs: Research and Analysis

In preparation for your final research-based analysis, you will locate, summarize, synthesize, and evaluate sources. Your annotated bibliography will include five sources that address the issue or question you have identified in your photo set. At least two of these sources should be peer- reviewed articles in academic journals. One of these sources may be an additional primary source (e.g., photo, film, poem, etc.). Your sources need not address the photo set directly, but they should speak to your inquiry question.



Finding Sources of Information

Articles

To find articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers, search an online ilbrary database. Use the "Resource Gateway" on the IUB Libraries' web site to search for a particular database or index by name, alphabetically, or by subject. Some suggestions for this project are:


  • Academic Search Premier

    Academic Search Premier is an electronic library database that includes a variety of academic disciplines and provides access to scholarly and popular journal articles, many of which are full- text. This will be useful for finding articles that provide a contemporary look at a historical event or for researching yoru social issue.


  • Communication and Mass Media Complete

    CMMC incorporates "CommSearch" and "Mass Media Articles Index" plus additional journals in the fields of communication and mass media, over 200 journals available in full-text.


  • JSTOR

    JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization established with the assistance of The Mellon Foundation, provides complete runs of hundreds of important journal titles in more than 30 arts, humanities, and social science disciplines. The full text of these scholarly journals can be browsed online and searched, and the page images can be printed. The IUB Libraries subscribe to all titles available through JSTOR.


  • Lexis-Nexis

    Lexis-Nexis is an electronic library database that includes the full-text of newspaper articles for both national, regional, and local news from 1980 to the present. This will be useful for finding articles that provide a contemporary look at a historical event or for researching your social issue.


  • MLA International Bibliography

    MLA International Bibliography is an electronic library index that includes citations from more than 3,000 journals, book chapters, papers, dissertations, etc., from 1963 to the present. After you get the citations you need, click on the IU Link button available in the database. This feature will direct you to either an online database where the article is available in full-text or into IUCAT, which will provide the location of the print journal where the article can be found.


  • Project MUSE

    Project MUSE offers nearly 250 quality journal titles from 40 scholarly publishers. As one of the academic community's primary electronic journals resources, Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.


  • ProQuest Historical New York Times

    ProQuest Historical New York Times is an electronic library database that includes full-text of The New York Times newspaper from its first issue in 1851 to two years ago. ProQuest also provides full-text (with varying coverage) of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Post. To search these four databases simultaneously, access the New York Times, choose "Select Multiple Databases" and scroll down to select the other historic newspapers. This will be useful for finding articles written during the time of your event/social issue.


    You can also use the widget below to search all four historical newspapers databases at once. Give it a try!


    ProQuest 
    Enter your search terms:

  • PubMed

    PubMed provides access to bibliographic information that includes MEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, as well as: the out-of-scope citations (e.g., articles on plate tectonics or astrophysics) from certain MEDLINE journals, primarily general science and chemistry journals, for which the life sciences articles are indexed for MEDLINE. Citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing. Some additional life science journals that submit full text to PubMedCentral and receive a qualitative review by NLM.



Finding Films

To find films, search IUCAT, the library's online catalog. IUCAT tells you what materials the IUB Libraries own and where they are located.




Finding Photos

To find photos, search the AP Photo Archive, an electronic library containing the AP's current photos and a selection of pictures from their 50 million image print and negative library. You can also search the Ebsco Images database, which contains a collection of images ranging from photographs and maps to illustrations and etchings.




Evaluating and Citing Sources

Peer Reviewed/Scholarly vs. Popular

Confused on what your instructor means by a "scholarly" source? Go here for clarification.


Help with Citing

You will need to cite your outside information sources if you directly quote, paraphrase, or utilize another's ideas. For help, see Help with Citing.




Creating Keywords/Searching

Library databases that provide access to research/information sources are different from search engines like Google or Yahoo. Each databse may use different terms to describe the information available in them. You may need to come up with several different terms (keywords) that describe your topic in order to find books and articles. To create keywords, start with the terms of your historical event or social issue. Then, try to think of synonyms and related words and phrases for those terms. For example:


Sample Historical Event: Charles Manson murders
Sample Societal Issues: race relations; counter-culture movements

Possible Keywords:

Charles Manson race relations counter-culture movements
Charles Manson murders race war counterculture
Charles Manson trial race discrimination communial living
Manson family racial differences hippies
(Sharon) Tate murder class conflict subculture
LaBianca murder class relations 1960s/Nineteen sixties
Helter Skelter black white differences youth culture

You can use these terms in various combinations in each database.  String keywords together by using "AND" to focus in on your topic.


Examples:

Charles Manson and murders and trial
counterculture and history
race relations and 1960s

You will access different (and perhaps better-suited) information with each new set of search terms you try; therefore, you may want to perform several searches even if you get results with your first attempt.


An additional resource you may use is the Oxford English Dictionary online. The OED online can be used for finding definitions, etymologies, and quotations for when a word was first used. The advanced search options allow for searches to be conducted on first cited author, first cited source, and first cited date, among others.




Librarian Help

Ask a Librarian anytime! If you are in the library, stop by the Reference Desk for assistance. We're happy to help you at any stage of the research process.