US History / American Studies Informational Research Paper: Deeper Research

Look here first for news, magazine, and scholarly or academic journal articles.

A Book is a Book - eBooks are published books you can access online.

Deeper Research answers what/why/how types of questions:

• Why does this event matter to the people who lived at the time of the event?
• What were the catalysts of this event?
• What else was happening at the time of this event?
• How did this event impact impact the time that it happened?

Research Tips:

• Evaluate your sources for validity. Focus on credibility and authority, but also reliability and relevance. Use the SIFT & PICK method.
• Record every valid source you think you might want to use as soon as you find it. You don't have to use them all, but you don't want to "lose" a source that might have been great.

Using a research database is a great way to find magazine, journal and news articles, as well as eBooks, recommended websites, primary sources and other reputable or scholarly information. 

You have access to many research databases through both Barrington High School and the public library.*  The databases on this page have been selected because they contain content that is most relevant to your research and topic. 

* If you can't remember the username/password to use the databases, see the QuickGuide to BHS Online.

Don't forget to check your local public library to see what other great resources your local library has to offer!

Database Search Tips:

• Start with general search terms (search terms are things like author, title, subject and keyword); this will not limit your results so quickly.
• Use limiters! Consider limiting your results to full-text so that when you find the perfect article, you can actually access the whole thing. Select more current results by limiting date. Get more scholarly results by selecting "peer-reviewed."
• As you begin to locate and review the materials your search produces, you can adjust your search terms accordingly.
• More general and fewer search terms will yield a higher number of results; more specific and a greater number of search terms will yield fewer and more focused results. 
• As you become more of an expert in your topic, your research will naturally become more focused.

You can find primary sources in the websites below, as well as in the Gale in Context: World History database.

Still looking for the right source? Try one of these sites.