Topic Browse
Make sure you can find articles on your topic:
It is important to find a topic that interests you. However, you must ALSO make sure that you can locate enough information to write your paper (you could have the most interesting topic in the world, but if you can't find articles on it, you're stuck)! In order to be sure you'll find success, find your topic of interest via an IMC database. This way, you know that research is available before you get too far into the process.
ABC-CLIO is a great place to start:
ABC-CLIO was designed specifically for high school students doing research. It is set up so that you can browse a ton of different topics to see what you might like to learn about. Once you find that topic, it gives you keywords, dates, important people, and additional articles. This is exactly what you need to get started! American History is their main database, but Pop Culture Universe is a great one too!
Once you have a topic, move to FOF, or even Google
Facts on File is a larger database. Here, you can do a keyword search, so it's great to visit after you have an idea of what you want to pursue. Remember, you do need a minimum number of secondary sources, so if you can find a second article here, that's a great sign. However, if you REALLY want to check out Google, that's okay too!
🔑 Database PASSWORDS 🔑
If you can't find good secondary sources on your topic in any of these databases, check out ALL of our American History databases. Every ABC-CLIO product and every FOF product works the same as the above examples!