Library Research for History Students: an Introduction  Tags: historical_research historiography history  

Once you have defined your research topic, you should also make a research plan. The usual starting point is to identify the main currents of thought on your topic. Naturally, you need to know which historians have taken up this topic, what their main arguments are, and how our understanding of the subject has changed with shifts in the predominant methodologies and theoretical perspectives in the historical profession. In answering these questions, you will use secondary sources (the published work of scholars specializing in the topic); this is also termed the secondary literature on the subject. You will situate yourself in relation to the secondary literature on your topic. Does your analysis agree with previous scholarship, or are you offering a new interpretation?

For more on secondary sources, continue on to the next tab. . .

If you are unfamiliar with your subject area, it will be very helpful to begin with a source that summarizes the main events or circumstances and also describes the historical context. This strategy also helps you verify that at least some research has already been done on your topic--it would be very difficult to cover all the background and conduct original research on your topic without any direction from other scholars, all in a single semester!

Examples of sources that provide broad overviews:

• Encyclopedias and especially subject encyclopedias (e.g., the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era)
• Published bibliographies
• Chronologies
• Authoritative web sites
• General histories (e.g. The Oxford History of the United States)