The Research Process
Choose a topic.
Do a brain dump: Note down what you already know about your topic, including
- Names of people, organizations, companies, time period you are interested in, places of interest [countries, regions, cities]
Fill in the gaps in your knowlege: get background information from encyclopedias or other secondary sources. Wikipedia can be good here.
Select the best places/ databases to find information on your topic. Look under the History Databases tab of this guide for article database suggestions. Or use a catalog like Oskicat or Melvyl to search for books and other resources.
Use nouns from your brain dump as search terms.
Evaluate what you find. Change search terms to get closer to what you really want.
Refine Your Topic - Using the information you have gathered, determine if your research topic should be narrower or broader. You may need to search basic resources again using your new, focused topics and keywords.
Take a look this short tutorial on beginning your research for more ideas.
Finding Background Information
The following titles are just examples of sources for background information on immigration topics and on specific immigrant groups. For more sources, search Oskicat by subject, including specific ethnic groups (ex: indians of north america encyclopedias, mexican americans dictionaries), browse the reference collections of Doe Library (2nd floor) or the Ethnic Studies Library, or ask for assistance. Remember to search broadly - if you are not finding reference sources on vietnamese americans, search more broadly (ex: asian american* encyclopedias).
Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980)
Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America (2000)
Encyclopedia of Immigration and Migration in the American West (2006)
Encyclopedia of American Immigration (2001)
We the People: an Atlas of America's Ethnic Diversity (1988)
Atlas of American diversity (1998)
Search Oskicat by keyword ethnic chronology series for a series of chronologies of the history of specific ethnic groups (Czechs, Filipinos, etc.) The titles are from the 1970's and not every group is represented but still a useful starting place for some ethnic groups.
The Craft of Research [book]
This classic book on writing a college research paper is easily skimmed or deep enough for the truly obsessed researcher, explains the whole research process from initial questioning, through making an argument, all the way to effectively writing your paper.
This link is to the Google Books preview. But buy a secondhand copy for yourself. It's worth the $8 bucks.
Guide to writing history papers
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Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students
A comprehensive but easy-to-skim web guide to writing history papers. Recommended by History Dept faculty.