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HIST 200 - The Great War / Schneider, Joanne

Tools and strategies for finding resources on the Great War
Subjects: History Tags: the great war, world war i

Searching databases

Searching in Historical Abstracts

 

"Select a Field" searches in the title, abstract and subject fields.  This will ensure that the terms used form a major focus of the citations retrieved without your having to know the exact Subject Terms in advance.

BE SURE to use the Historical Period feature to limit your results to the date range of the war: 1914 c.e. - 1918 c.e.  This ensures that all citations retrieved will be focused on the period of World War I.

 History 200 - Historical Abstracts

This database permits truncation using an asterisk [ * ] at the end of the root of the word.  So, in the strategy above, one could use <film*> and/or <movie*> to get both singular and plural.

NOTE the "facets" traveling down the left-hand frame: the "Source Type" facets permit you to view only Magazines (of which there are very few covered by this index) or only Academic Journals.  The "Subject" facets allow you to add a new subject term to your search OR to improve the precision of your search by changing a word  (film) from a keyword (as above) to a specific subject term.

Toward the right of each citation, NOTE the icon of a blue file Folder.  Use this Folder function to group useful citations together in order to print, save or email them.  Once you begin to use this feature, the FOLDER icon in the top frame will an open file Folder View in which the references you've chosen, as well as the article text if it is linked to the citation, will be stored, waiting for you to Save, Print or Email them.  Be aware; LINKED Full Text is NOT stored INSIDE Historical Abstracts but rather on an external server such as the publisher's, and  only that link will be included with its associated citation when emailed or saved.

At the end of an article citation, you may see the link "Cited References" and a number.  If so marked, the bibliography of the article can be displayed without direct access to the article by using this link.  References to primary sources, as well as other relevant secondary sources, may be gleaned from the bibliographies of scholarly articles.  Never abandon a source in hand without checking the notes and bibliography.

Finally, you can further LIMIT your search by returning to the initial Advanced Search screen or by choosing "Show more..." from the left-hand facet frame.  Limits include:  Historical Period, Publication Type (i.e. Conference Paper), Abstract Available, Peer Reviewed, Publication (insert the name of a specific periodical you wish to search, i.e. Journal of world history), and Document Type (i.e. Book Review).