The information-literate historian : a guide to research for history students / Jenny L. Presnell, Miami University, (Ohio).

Historians and the research process: getting started -- How scholarly information is communicated -- What historians do and how they do it -- How to think historically -- Beginning your research -- Where do viable and interesting topics come from? -- Developing a question and formulating an argument -- The blueprint: concept maps, storyboarding, and outlines -- Taking notes -- Creating bibliographies and documenting sources -- The changing nature of historical research and what remains the same -- For further reading -- Reference resources -- What are reference resources and when are they useful? -- How to find reference resources -- Types of reference resources -- Encyclopedias -- Bibliographies -- Multivolume general histories -- Biographical resources -- Chronologies -- Dictionaries, etymologies, and word origins -- Book reviews -- Directories -- Using the internet as a reference resource -- Case study: using reference resources to understand herodotus -- Finding monographs and using catalogs -- What is a book? the changing nature of monographs -- When are books the right choice for information? -- How to use a book artfully -- Finding monographs and using catalogs -- Navigating a library portal/finding the catalog -- Strategic searching: keyword vs. subject searching -- Keyword searching -- Subject searching -- Alternative searching: faceted catalogs and limiting -- How to read an online catalog record -- Finding monographs and using catalogs outside of your school -- Sources for catalogs -- Where else can I find monographs? -- Case study: finding and using monographs: the spread of islam in western africa -- Finding journals, magazines, and newspapers: using indexes -- What are periodicals (or journals, magazines, newspapers)? -- Journals vs. magazines -- Commentary periodicals -- The role of newspapers in secondary historical research -- Journal articles: the core of secondary periodical research -- How to read a journal article -- How to find articles: designing a search and using and index -- Using an online database: historical abstracts and america: history and life -- Entering a keyword search in historical abstracts -- What you will get: looking at your results -- Selecting other indexes -- E-journals and electronic collections of journals -- Case study: searching for periodical articles: canton trade system -- Selected historical indexes -- Selected periodical indexes of use to historians.

Evaluating your sources -- Why evaluate your sources? -- Basic evaluation criteria -- Perspective and bias: historians and interpretation -- Scholarship or propaganda? -- Case study: evaluating sources: holocaust historians -- The thrill of discovery: primary sources -- Definitions -- Nature and categories of primary sources -- Planning your project with primary sources -- Locating primary sources -- Digitization and electronic access to primary sources -- Published sources for mass consumption -- Books as primary sources -- Magazines and journals as primary sources -- Newspapers as primary sources -- Unpublished sources and manuscripts -- Catalogs, bibliographies, directories, and indexes for manuscripts -- Directories to archive repositories -- Documents from governments and other official bodies -- Indexes, full text sources, and bibliographies of government documents -- Directories/bibliographies for government/guides to government publications -- Genealogy and public records -- Guides for genealogy and public records -- Business records -- Directories and resources -- Oral history -- Guide to oral history repositories -- Material culture: buildings, artifacts, and objects -- History before 1400: ancient and medieval cultures and those with substantial oral and -- Material culture traditions -- Ancient history -- Medieval european history -- Indigenous peoples, former colonial nations, and african american history -- Using bibliographies to locate primary sources -- Bibliographies containing references to primary sources -- Evaluation -- Case study: finding primary sources: tobacco through the ages -- For further reading -- Bibliography of advanced indexes to published primary sources -- History and the internet -- The internet and research -- When is the internet appropriate for historical research? -- Practicing history in the electronic age: using the internet -- Using the internet: the basics -- How do i access websites on the internet? -- Search directories -- Search engines -- Meta-search engines -- What am i missing? the deep web or invisible web -- Special search techniques: finding primary sources on the internet -- Searching for primary sources -- Historians communicating: using listservs and blogs for information -- Evaluation of websites -- General websites -- Evaluating sites concerned with primary sources -- Case study: using the internet: japanese americas and internment camps -- Advanced research techniques for primary sources -- Digital history -- What digital history is and is not -- Approaches to digital history -- How to perform simple digital textual analysis -- Digital textual analysis tools -- Examples of digital history projects -- Beginning your own digital history project -- For further reading -- Maps: from simple to geographic information systems -- Maps as representations of our world -- A short history of maps and cartography -- Maps for navigation and commercial use -- Maps as political tools -- Maps as propaganda -- Maps marking territory -- Maps in war -- Components of modern maps -- Finding maps -- Categories of historical maps -- Map resources -- Gazetteers -- How to read a map -- Questions to ask when reading a map -- Planning your own map: simple to complex -- For further reading -- History of maps and cartography -- Maps and general geography texts -- Geographic information systems.

Includes bibliographical references and index.