History of Women in the United States - HIST250 - Braun-Strumfels

Developing keywords

Narrowing your topic

Think about moving from a vague concept like "power" or "success," to a concrete example of that, like suffrage, motherhood, or employment.

Here are some questions to ask to narrow down the scope of your research:

• What time period is your focus?
• Is there a sub-set of people you want to focus on?
  • Instead of women in general, are you interested in African-American women? Native American women? Mothers? Working women?
• Look for specific terminology, people, or places that can help you target relevant sources.
  • Examples: suffragettes, second-wave feminism, Rosa Parks, Seneca Falls
• Think of synonyms and related terms - If you can't find what you are looking for, try using a synonym of your term.
  • Example: miscegenation, interracial
  • For this example, you could also try antonyms such as anti-miscegenation or "racial purity" to focus on the purpose of those laws

Search techniques

As you develop keywords and narrow down your topic, there are some techniques you can use to help you find the most relevant resource

• "Quotes around phrase" - this searches for your phrase in that exact order instead of as separate words.
  • Example: "second-wave feminism"
• Truncation: femin* = feminine, feminist, femininity, etc. - this searches for any word that begins with that root
• Wild card: wom?n = woman, women - similar to truncation, but it searches for words with any letter in the open spot
• AND - combine your search terms with and to focus your topic
• OR - combine your search terms with or to search for multiple synonyms at the same time (broadening your search)

Combine keywords and use multiple synonyms or truncation/wild cards to create a complex search string:
(suffrage OR vot*) AND wom?n AND "Seneca Falls"

Additional strategies

• Try searching for the author of the source you already found if you are having trouble finding more
  • On the search results list, you can often click an author's name to perform a search for it
• Follow the linked subject terms on an article or source you already found to see of list of related sources (not all databases offer this tool)
• Some terms were coined after an event or time period ended, so using them will not help you find sources from that period!
  • Example: The "Seneca Falls Convention" was officially called "Woman's Rights Convention"
  • Try searching "Seneca Falls" AND wom?n AND rights AND convention
  • Example: The term Latinx was coined in the early 21st century
  • Trying searching for Latina or Chicana, both of which were in use in the mid-20th century
• If you're having trouble finding books and eBooks in the catalog with the terms you are using, try formal descriptors developed by the Library of Congress. Surprisingly, "primary source" is not an official descriptor!. Here are some better options:
  • Personal narratives
  • Diaries
  • Sources
  • There are also Library of Congress descriptors for time periods or events that may help narrow your search, such as World War 1939-1945 and United States History 1783-1865.

Keep a look-out for:

• Dates!
  • A source about the struggle for women's suffrage written in 2010 is not a primary source.
  • A secondary source written in 1950 will likely not provide the most up-to-date understanding of a past event.

This graphic provides a visual representation of the research process, from broad idea to thesis statement.

For example, you may start out interested in women's rights, then narrow down to women's suffrage. Based on exploring your topic, you could choose to research the role the Seneca Falls Convention had on focusing women's rights advocates on the importance of voting rights.