Embedded Files
Created by Stacy Kitsis, Arlington High School Librarian. Last updated: January 4, 2011.
Recommended Subscription Databases
An hour on Google can save you five minutes with a librarian. Let me show you why.
American History Online (Facts on File)
Comprehensive source of information on United States political, military, social, and cultural history. Password required.
U.S. History in Context (Gale)
Authoritative content on hundreds of people, events, and topics in United States history.
This library of e-books includes American Decades and American Decades Primary Sources, excellent resources for understanding specific periods (1900-1999) in modern United States history.
Biography in Context (Gale)
Great place to start if you are focusing on a specific person in history.
Gale PowerSearch (Gale)
This link will take you into ALL of the Gale databases we can access, allowing you to search several at one time. Hint: Be sure to browse different content types (e.g., books, academic journals) and limit your search by subject for efficient results!
Recommended Websites
Great source of digitized primary documents and more. Use the search box at the top right of the page and then filter results.
National Museum of American History (Smithsonian)
The Smithsonian is a great source for primary sources, including images and sounds for creative presentations.
Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s (Ohio State University)
Topics include prohibition, immigration and the Ku Klux Klan, the "new woman," and the Scopes Trial.
For information about presidents, of course.
Books and e-Books
Set your library location to Arlington to view materials currently available at the Robbins Library.
This site contains thousands of free e-books in the public domain. Books in the public domain are typically old enough to have passed out of copyright.
The Internet Archive also has free e-books in a variety of formats, including PDF and EPUB. Download directly to your mobile device!
Search Tips
Consider your topic carefully. How narrow or broad is the focus of your project? Are you presenting a broad overview, or do some aspects of the topic interest you more than others? This can help you come up with more focused search terms as you proceed in your research.
Combine keywords to get articles that match each of your important concepts. For example, if you are researching the immigration history of Chinese Americans, use:
immigration AND Chinese
Use quotation marks to find complete phrases, especially proper names and titles. For example:
"Harlem Renaissance" or "Jazz Age"
Use truncation. An advanced technique, but in most databases:
immigra* will find immigrant, immigrants, immigration, etc.
Check your spelling. If you don't find anything, sloppy spelling may be to blame!
Citing Sources & Academic Integrity
Whenever you use information or ideas that are not your own (and not common knowledge), you must cite your sources. The same is true for images, unless you are the original artist.
Tip: The Facts on File and Gale databases provide MLA format citations at the end of each article, ready for you to copy and paste into a works cited page. See? Told you they would save you time.
Interactive citation generator for online and print sources.
Research and Documentation Online (Bedford/St. Martin's)
Detailed explanation of in-text citations and works cited entries in perfect MLA format for a wide variety of sources.
Questions, comments, compliments, concerns? Email me at skitsis@arlington.k12.ma.us.
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