HIST 150: Memories and Historical Narratives in China (Fall 2023)

• Keep it simple!
  • Only use a few search terms at once, connected by AND
  • Example: Women AND education AND china
• Use nouns (people/place/thing/film) as search terms in the search
  • Example: "cultural revolution"
• Limit to peer reviewed materials
• Use Boolean!
  • "cold war" AND politics AND China
• When you find an article on your topic, open it and pay attention to the subject terms!
  • When you search these databases, keywords will become highlighted in the results. Pay attention to these, they will help you find search terms
    • For example, the subject terms Women AND education AND china in Historical Abstracts bring up over 50 peer reviewed articles on that topic.
• Do NOT limit to full text
  • Even if a database thinks we don't own an article, we frequently do have access through another databases. Use the "find at W&M" button to check.
  • OR use ILL order a PDF at no cost -- we'll email it to your @wm address.

Topic: Politics of Music in 20th century China.

1. Identify keywords
   1. politics ; music; China; 20th century
2. Consider synonyms.
   1. politics, political
   2. music, maybe arts?
   3. 20th or twentieth 
3. Use Boolean searching to create a basic search command
   1. Politic* AND music AND china AND (20th OR twentieth) 
4. Search! Look at the results and revised based on feedback from database.

If you're not getting good results, try the same search in the catalog -- it may be a broad topic better suited to books.

Pay attention to Book Reviews.

They do not count as peer reviewed articles but don't dismiss them. They will point you to useful books on your topic, especially in Bibliography of Asian Studies.

To find book reviews, use the Reviews filter in each database.