HIS312 Medieval Europe Research Guide

You've got your research question; now it's time for effective searching!

Try these tips in online indexes/databases: 

• Brainstorm a variety of keywords / search terms
  Examples:
  • poverty
  • low-income
  • income level
  • social class

• To Narrow a search:
  Connect keywords with AND
  Example:
  poverty AND education AND achievement
  europe AND medieval AND women

• Use quotes to search for a phrase
  Example:
  "social inequality"
  "middle ages"
  (NOTE:  This works well in most databases, but not as well in Summon)

• To Broaden a search:
  Use or to search synonyms
  Example:
  poverty OR low-income
  medieval OR "middle ages"

• Combine various search strategies
  Example:
  (poverty OR low-income) AND education
  (medieval OR "middle ages") AND women

• Search by keywords, not sentences
  Example:
  poverty AND "secondary education" AND achievement
                         instead of
  effect of poverty on high school students

• Use * to get different endings of a root word
  Example:
  school* searches for:  school, schools, schooling
  medieval* searches for:  medieval, medievalism, medievalist, medievalists

• Look for official subject terms or descriptors; use these terms to find more articles on your topic
  Examples:
  Christian life--Europe--History--To 1500
  Europe--Economic conditions--To 1492
  Europe--History--476-1492
  Europe--Social conditions--To 1492
  Middle Ages
  Religious thought--Middle Ages, 600-1500

Identify the topic words you will use for your search

• For example, if you were conducting research on slaves taken from Ardra in the Bight of Benin during the late 17th century, you may want to start with the following topic words:
  • slaves
  • slavery
  • slave trade
  • Ardra
  • Benin
  • West Africa
  • 17th century

Locate background information

• Use encyclopedias and other background resources to identify key participants, dates, and publications (reports, newsletters, magazines, pamphlets, etc.) associated with your topic
• Click on Reference in this guide for examples of resources in which to search for encyclopedias

Locate books and eBooks that contain primary sources

Use Libsearch (Advanced Search) to search for books and eBooks on your topic

• Put your topic words (people, places, events) in the first search boxes with the All Fields Search Type selected (the default)
  • Examples:
    • southampton insurrection
    • (slaves OR slavery) AND "united states"
    • (women OR wives OR wife) AND "united states"
• Put the type of primary text or texts you are looking for in the subsequent search box and select the Subject Terms Search Type.
  
  NOTE:  You must use one of the words listed below since primary text catalog records generally use one of these words as part of their Subject Heading(s):
  • sources  (one of the most common words that identifies primary texts)
  • document*  (note the truncation character at the end of this term)
  • personal narratives
  • correspondence
  • letters
  • diaries
  • interviews
  • speeches
  • quotations
  • periodicals  (identifies newspapers, magazines, or journals)
  • manuscripts
  • reports

  
  You may want to combine some of the above words using OR

  Example:
  sources OR "personal narratives" OR correspondence OR diaries
  
  (Skip this step when looking for literary works not covered by any of the terms above)
   
• For example:
  If you enter the following Advanced Search in Libsearch...
  
       Any Field:   (slaves OR slavery) AND "united states"
       Subject:  sources OR "personal narratives" OR correspondence OR diaries
       Material Type:  Books
  
  ...you will obtain results that include:
  Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies

(NOTE: These tips are adapted with permission from Sarah Shoemaker, Archives & Special Collections Librarian at Brandeis)