HIS 132 Sherman

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V-J Day in Times Square, a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, was published in Life in 1945.

Some databases offer lots of ways to limit, or narrow, your search without changing your search terms.

DATE : Do you want articles or books published just in the last 10 years, 5 years, 6 months? Nearly all databases offer a DATE limiter.

SOURCE TYPE : Does your assignment specify "trade journals" or prohibit the use of "websites?" Do you need a "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" source? Look for SOURCE TYPE or PUBLICATION TYPE.

DOCUMENT TYPE : Are you trying to avoid "book reviews," or "obituaries?" If you need a longer article, try selecting "feature" or "cover article." Want opinion rather than just facts? Select "commentary" or "editorial," but exclude "general information."

LANGUAGE or LOCATION : Finding too many articles in French or Portugese? Studies done in China or Uganda? Look for a LANGUAGE limiter to select only articles written in English, or a LOCATION or GEOGRAPHIC limiter for "United States," "U.S." or a particular state or region of interest to you.

Use the General Keyword search box and type in your topic plus one of the following words or phrases:

• History Source*
• History Document*
• Personal Narrative*
• Diar* (this retrieves Diary and Diaries)
• History Archive*
• Correspondence
• Letter*
• Speech*
• Primary source*

Note: Use of the * at the end of a word will search for singular and plural forms.

• Advanced Search

• Keep your initial search simple—single words or short phrases.  In database, set the limit for “Full Text” right away, but save other limits (such as date ranges, scholarly, etc.) until you see the results list.

• Look for common database tools (suggested subject headings, abstracts, citation help, emailing and save options) on the edges of the page, often in a color bar above the search boxes or in a separate frame on the right or left of your results list.

Truncation allows you to search variables of a word by typing part of the word plus an asterisk *

ADOPT finds just adopt, but ADOPT* finds adopted, adopting, adoptions, etc.

WOMAN finds just woman, but WOM*N finds woman and women.

Enclose your words in quotation marks or parentheses to create a phrase search.

CHILDREN OF MEN finds titles with any combination of those common words.

"CHILDREN OF MEN" finds the book and movie with that exact title.

Look for  proximity search options.

Many CFCC databases offer proximity searching by typing multiple search terms within a single search box (with no quotation marks).

Google also uses a variation of proximity searching, giving more relevance to words typed in a single search box if they appear near each other in the results.

Use the right  Boolean operator.

• Use the right Boolean operator--usually AND--to link two search terms.  Using OR often results in a large number of unrelated (and less useful) results.  Using AND assures that both of your search terms will appear in the same document.