Secondary Sources
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
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Articles from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books. Covers all major academic areas. An excellent place to start when learning the basics of any topic. Will help focus your topic, find keywords and people, and discover more in-depth books and articles. Images, audio and video files are included.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive and authoritative source of biographies and portraits of significant, influential or notorious figures who shaped British history.
- Biography in Context This link opens in a new window
Biographical information on historically significant figures and present-day newsmakers from around the world and across all disciplines and subject areas.
Basic Search Tips
- Place quotation marks around keyword phrases
"trench warfare"
"Iranian Coup"
- Capitalize Boolean logic connectors (AND, OR).
narrative OR plot
"American Involvement" AND World War I
- Click either "View all formats and languages" or "View all editions" to view all library holdings for a particular title.
- Items at UD appear first in the list of search results. Other items can be requested via interlibrary loan.
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
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Index of scholarly literature covering the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada, from prehistory to the present.
- APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
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Citations and abstracts of peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science, mental health and related disciplines. (Coverage: 1806 --)
- Columbia International Affairs Online This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive source for theory and research in international affairs. Each section of CIAO is updated with new material regularly.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Index of literature covering world history (excluding the U.S. and Canada) from the 15th century to the present. Subjects include world history, military history, womens history, history of education and more. Indexes 2,300+ academic journals in over 40 languages. (Coverage: 1952 --)
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides access to many millions of journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Artstor images incorporated into JSTOR as of 8/1/2024.
- PAIS Index This link opens in a new window
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Covers public policy issues and emphasizes factual and statistical information. Print and electronic journals in the social sciences are indexed with particular attention to articles that bear on public policy, administration and legislation. Business topics are covered, with emphasis on economic factors, industry surveys, business-societal interactions and similar issues, rather than details of business operations. (Coverage: 1915 --)
- Project MUSE Journals This link opens in a new window
Full-text, scholarly, electronic journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences from many of the world's leading university presses and scholarly societies. (Coverage: 1993 or later to the present)
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Indexes the international literature of sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. (Coverage: 1952 --)
- Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window
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Bibliographic database for womens studies and feminist research. A valuable resource for many disciplines, including sociology, history, international relations, humanities.
Tips & Tricks for Searching for Articles
Finding articles within databases and journals is not the same process you would use to conduct a search in Google or an internet search engine. You cannot type in a question, but rather need to choose specific keywords and phrases to find results. These tips are similar to how you would search for material in DELCAT.
Helpful Ways to Search:
- Use quotations around a phrase to "tell" the database or journal that you want these words to remain together.
- Ex: "American exceptionalism"
- Think of synonyms to your keywords...Especially when conducting historical research, you may need to develop words and phrases that were used during that particular time period, rather than modern-day words.
- Ex: World War I; First World War; The Great War - All would give you different results!
- Use AND/OR to connect words, concepts, and phrases together to receive specified results.
- Ex: World War I AND United States
Use the Advanced Search option in databases and journals to narrow down by date, region, type of document, and more!