Historical Investigation research skills
Updated Term 1 2023
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In case you need a reminder about why we need to evaluate websites, and how to do it.
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Joining other libraries
The links below will take you straight to the pages to join these libraries. We highly recommend you join as it will give you much greater access to research material.
Sutherland Shire Libraries
State Library of NSW
National Library of Australia
Joining any of these libraries will give you access to the library services including borrowing/accessing books, organising interlibrary loans, and accessing their online databases. The databases in particular are an excellent resource for finding peer-reviewed articles. We have a guide on reading academic articles. It is free to join the libraries and once you join you're a member for life, which will be useful if you go on to further study. We have a guide on how to use the State Library's databases.
If you are already a member of your local library, you can register that library card to access the State Library's e-resources. (You will still need a State Library card to access any of their other collections though)
The State Library has put together a guide on researching for Ancient History. On their databases page, they also have a category for HSC resources. (If you follow the link and click the cross next to 'HSC' you'll notice all the subjects are selected. Just de-select the ones you don't need)
The links below will take you straight to the pages to join these libraries. We highly recommend you join as it will give you much greater access to research material.
Sutherland Shire Libraries
State Library of NSW
National Library of Australia
Joining any of these libraries will give you access to the library services including borrowing/accessing books, organising interlibrary loans, and accessing their online databases. The databases in particular are an excellent resource for finding peer-reviewed articles. We have a guide on reading academic articles. It is free to join the libraries and once you join you're a member for life, which will be useful if you go on to further study. We have a guide on how to use the State Library's databases.
If you are already a member of your local library, you can register that library card to access the State Library's e-resources. (You will still need a State Library card to access any of their other collections though)
The State Library has put together a guide on researching for Ancient History. On their databases page, they also have a category for HSC resources. (If you follow the link and click the cross next to 'HSC' you'll notice all the subjects are selected. Just de-select the ones you don't need)
Open Access
Open Access (OA) journals are peer-reviewed journals that have been made freely available. They can be more useful for some areas of research than others, however OA is becoming an increasingly popular model of journal publishing so more subject areas are becoming available. Be sure to use the options provided on each search page to refine your search so you can filter out irrelevant results.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - It helps if you limit the full text language to English (unless you speak any of the other language options fluently!).
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)- A way to search for peer-reviewed OA books that are available for download.
Google Scholar - Uncheck the 'include patents' and 'include citations' boxes and try adding filetype:pdf OR filetype:html if you're getting a lot of results that aren't freely available. If you're getting a lot of books try adding -book.
BASE - On the advanced search page, uncheck the 'non-open access' in the second box on the left. If your results still contain a lot of non-OA sources, use the 'Access' drop-down menu under the 'Refine Search Result' list on the right and select open access.
Open Access (OA) journals are peer-reviewed journals that have been made freely available. They can be more useful for some areas of research than others, however OA is becoming an increasingly popular model of journal publishing so more subject areas are becoming available. Be sure to use the options provided on each search page to refine your search so you can filter out irrelevant results.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - It helps if you limit the full text language to English (unless you speak any of the other language options fluently!).
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)- A way to search for peer-reviewed OA books that are available for download.
Google Scholar - Uncheck the 'include patents' and 'include citations' boxes and try adding filetype:pdf OR filetype:html if you're getting a lot of results that aren't freely available. If you're getting a lot of books try adding -book.
BASE - On the advanced search page, uncheck the 'non-open access' in the second box on the left. If your results still contain a lot of non-OA sources, use the 'Access' drop-down menu under the 'Refine Search Result' list on the right and select open access.
Places to look for other types of information
Sweetsearch - A search engine designed to find results that are more relevant to students.
An overview of the topic
Images
Written primary sources
Analysis
Sweetsearch - A search engine designed to find results that are more relevant to students.
An overview of the topic
- Textbooks
- Smaller information books on the topic (libraries are good for this)
- History.com
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Ancient History Encyclopedia
- BBC (the best way is to add site:bbc.com OR site:bbc.co.uk in your Google search)
Images
- Books
- Libraries and museums' online collections
- Internet History Sourcebooks
- Pages created by professors (add site:.edu in your Google search to find these)
- Flickr: The Commons
- Google Arts and Culture
Written primary sources
- Books
- Google Books (generally the whole book won't be available online)
- Internet History Sourcebooks
- Library and museum online collections for things like letters and newspapers
- Pages created by professors (remember, add inurl:edu in your Google search to find these)
- Project Gutenberg
Analysis
- Books by historians (try your local library or the State Library)
- Google Books (generally the whole book won't be available online)
- Journal articles
- Project Gutenberg
Links for further reading:
Critically analysing information sources: Critical appraisal and analysis [archive*] *what does [archive] mean?
Critically analysing information sources: Critical appraisal and analysis [archive*] *what does [archive] mean?
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