Research Guides: Hist 301: Historian's Craft (Benes, Spring 2024): Secondary Source: Writing out your topics

Steps when looking for peer reviewed sources

1) Write out your topic

2) Identify key words

3) Identify synonyms

4) write out the search using Boolean

5) After your first search, revise terms

Propaganda in Britain aimed to increase enlistment.
- Propaganda
- Britain
- Enlistment
  - Propaganda AND (Britain OR "united kingdom") AND enlistment
    - AND "World War I" in databases, or AND "world war" AND 1918 in the catalog
Impact of the war in Germany on Education.
- "world war I" AND germany AND education
  - probably all as subjects
Diplomacy between Britain and France during the first year of the war.
- Diplomacy, Britain, France
  - for books: (Diplomacy OR "foreign relations") AND France AND (britain OR "united kingdom") AND "World war" AND 1918
  - for articles, (Diplomacy OR "foreign relations") AND France AND (britain OR "united kingdom") AND "World war" AND 1918
    - or (Diplomacy OR "foreign relations") AND France AND (britain OR "united kingdom") [ use filter to 1914-1915 ]
Impact of the war on Art
- would need to narrow to a country, style, artist, genre.
  - "world war I" AND "Social aspects" AND art
  - If I'm not sure how to narrow, I'd try subject search for Art and "World War I" and use the subject filter to narrow from the results