Finding the Information You Need
Key finding aids available at Red Deer College's Library and elsewhere
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The library at Red Deer College may be small, but it offers a vast trove of information for all your research projects. Here are a few tips on finding the right kind of information for your project.
The library at Red Deer College may be small, but it offers a vast trove of information for all your research projects. Here are a few tips on finding the right kind of information for your project.
First step: Determine what kind of information you are looking for
First step: Determine what kind of information you are looking for
When doing a research project, it helps to first establish the information needed. Typically, for most historical projects, you will need:
Information about historical events
Contextual information to help you situate the events, for example:
What was also happening at the time?
Who else said or did things that may have influenced the outcomes of the events?
Where was it all happening?
Are there alternate names or spellings of people's names or places).
Biographical information about people directly or tangentially involved in the events
Diverse historical interpretations of the events (what historians have said about the events and their significance)
If you are writing a review: biographical information about the author(s) of the work
Once you have a clear idea of the kind of information you need, it becomes easier to find the right kind of resources to do the job.
If you need more information about researching generally, use the link to the right to return to the page on the Research Process:
Research is an iterative, not a linear process. You will likely have to make several searches at different steps in the process, depending on what information you already have and what you need.
Knowing what questions you are asking helps to then determine where to look for it. Note that this graph is about finding mostly secondary sources. Primary sources could be used for any of these types of information, depending how they are used.
Knowing what questions you are asking helps to then determine where to look for it. Note that this graph is about finding mostly secondary sources. Primary sources could be used for any of these types of information, depending how they are used.
Second Step: Search the Web
Second Step: Search the Web
You can find enormous amounts of information freely accessible on the web. It's a good place to start looking for general information. Google is your friend. So is Wikipedia at this stage. Both, however, have limitations and you must be aware of them:
Results from a general Google search are organised by "popularity" or influenced by site owners who pay to be near the top of the search result. Therefore, only looking at search results on the first page may skew results.
Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. It means the information can also be of dubious accuracy. Also, its coverage of content outside Europe and the United States tends to be less thorough than it could be. For Canadian history, for example, you are better off using the Canadian Encyclopedia which, in addition to be focused on Canada, is peer-reviewed and reliable.
These caveats mean that starting by using Web searches is a good starting point, but it cannot stop there. You cannot produce a good quality college or university level paper by only using the web. So where do you go from there?
First, collect the general information you can from the web that will help you refine your search into more specific tools:
General description of events (Who was involved? What happened? Where did it take place? When? and Why do historians or the general public care about it?) These are questions that you can generally answer from a web search.
If using resources like Wikipedia or Answers.com (which is like Wikipedia), also check the references used. If any of them seem promising, take note of them for further research.
Remember: at all steps in the process, TAKE NOTES on what information you found where. This will save you time later and avoid plagiarism.
Remember: at all steps in the process, TAKE NOTES on what information you found where. This will save you time later and avoid plagiarism.
When taking notes about informationfound on the web, don't give reference to a Google search result, but rather to the actual website where the information is located. Also, keep descriptive information (name of the website, host, etc.) to avoid the traps of dead links.
Third step: Hit the library
Third step: Hit the library
This can start by using the library's website or actually walking into it and visiting. You can find the library online in multiple ways. It is accessible as a channel on the Loop and also on the college's website by typing http://www.rdc.ab.ca/library.
The Library's home page:
The Library's home page:
There are some search tools on it, such as the "One Search" bar, and the "NEOS Catalogue Search." These can be useful to find books and some journal articles, but they are not necessarily the best way to find the most relevant information.
Scroll down the page until you find "Find your Subject" on the right and click on that link. This will direct you to what is called "Libguides" or "Subject Guides" as on the link below. It will open a new tab in your browser. Each of these subject libguides provides the essential research information most useful to each of the disciplines listed. There are also specific libguides on developing your study skills, and on how to properly use the Chicago Manual of Style.
This page can also be useful for other courses you may be taking at the college in other disciplines!
The History LibGuide:
The History LibGuide:
Once you click on the "History" link in the general libguide page, another browser tab will open with this, the History Libguide.
All libguides follow the same template, but each of them has information specific to the discipline in question.
Note the column on the left, which allows you to navigate through the libguide according to your research needs. You also have a picture and contact information for the librarian who is responsible for curating this guide. Feel free to contact them or any other librarian with questions you may have regarding historical research.
The large boxes in the centre of the page contain links to the most important resources you will be using in historical research. These are explored in more detail in the following pages on this Resources site:
This website is the copyrighted work of Stéphane-D. Perreault and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Materials from external sources are acknowledged as such and used with permission. Use or adaptation of the material on this website without author's permission and attribution constitutes a violation of this license. Commercial use prohibited.
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