There are over 100 specialized databases for finding secondary sources. Why? Let's see.
Try the search "Great Britain" AND "world war II" AND women in Historical Abstracts, JSTOR, GoogleScholar, and the main library catalog.
Subject databases are designed around the search habits and research output of each field -- History, for example, isn't the same as Econ or Psych of Chem -- so it's extremely useful to use subject databases. Every discipline has subject databases, listed here:
For this class, I strongly suggest using Historical Abstracts, our main database for history articles. If you need a broader search, you can use the main library catalog too. Both search all our e-journals held in JSTOR, Muse, and other journal bundles.
This link opens in a new windowUSE AND OR NOT
Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.
AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: Britain AND film
OR - searches for one of the words. Example: British OR Britain
NOT - exclude a term. Example: Scotland NOT England
Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (British OR Britain) AND Film= search for British or English Laws.
Example: (England NOT London) AND Crime = search for crime in England, excluding London.
Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "World War II"
Example: "United Kingdom"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Winston Churchill" will exclude all results for "Winston S. Churchill"
Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Brit* will give you Brits, Britain, Britannia, British
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Brit* will also yield Brittany, Britons, and Britches.
World War II is not standardized. It is styled:
World War II
World War, 1939-1945
World War 2
Second World War
The most common is World War II, so I suggest using that -- WITH quotation marks as "World War II"
Or you can try ("world war II" OR "world war 2")
Is it Britain or United Kingdom or Great Britain.
It depends. They are not the same thing but we typically use UK and GB interchangeably.
For this class, I suggest using the phrase below"
(Britain OR British OR "united kingdom")
Summary:
for may topics, you can try the combination:
("world war II" OR "world war 2")
AND
(Britain OR British OR "united kingdom")
AND
YOUR TOPIC KEYWORD
Picking search terms is the hardest part.
First, write your topic or question. Identify key ideas
Depictions of World War 2 in British Films
Depictions
World War 2
British
Films
Consider synonyms for each:
Depictions / representations
World War 2 / World War II
British (do you mean British, or are you thinking English / Scottish / Welsh / Manx / etc
Films / Movies
Which are most likely to be use in scholarly works?
Depictions / representations
World War 2 / World War II
British (do you mean British, or are you thinking English / Scottish / Welsh / Manx / etc
Films / Movies
Try your first search, connecting keywords with AND
World War II AND Depictions AND British AND films
Add boolean language like quotation marks, *, etc
"World War II" AND Depiction* AND British AND film*
Sometimes you don't need a lot of keywords, especially if you're already using a subject database.
What is my topic is: How is the WW2 bombing of Coventry remembered?
A lot is implied in the topic so I don't even need to add "British" to the search. I can try:
"World War II"
Coventry
Memory
If I don't like the results, we can change a phrase. Let's try
"World War II"
Coventry
Memory Remembering