Background Research
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
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Need help finding a topic? Credo Reference might be able to help you find a topic, narrow it down, find general background information (like dates, event names, etc.), or help you develop keywords for searching. Remember! Background research does not support arguments or provide evidence!
Off Campus Access
While you connect automatically to our subscribed databases on campus, off campus access requires you to verify your affiliation with UD. Before entering a database, a log-in screen will appear requesting you to log in using your UD ID and password. For more information about off campus access, click here. Still experiencing issues? Get in touch with Ask the Library!
Finding Secondary Sources
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
- Items at UD appear first in the list of search results. Other items can be requested via InterLibrary Loan.
- Visit our DELCAT Research Guide for additional tips!
This list of databases is not a comprehensive list. If you want to see the full list of options we have, go to the "Research" tab on the homepage and narrow down your list of databases to "Arts & Humanities." It also might be helpful to look in databases for the "Social Sciences" as well.
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
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America: History & Life is the definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. This authoritative database provides indexing of more than 1,800 academic journals dating back to 1954, with some coverage for titles back to the early 20th century. The database also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events. - Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
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Anthropology Plus brings together into one resource Anthropological Literature from the Tozzer Library, Harvard University and Anthropological Index from The Library of the British Museum Department of Ethnography (Museum of Mankind), incorporating the former Royal Anthropological Institute Library. - Criminal Justice Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Criminal Justice Abstracts contains hundreds of in-depth abstracts of current books, book chapters, journal articles, government reports, and dissertations published worldwide related to criminal justice and criminology. The database also offers extensive coverage of new books from scholarly and commercial publishers and valuable reports from public and private agencies in many nations. - HeinOnline Academic This link opens in a new windowHeinOnline Academic is the world’s largest fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains extensive coverage of U.S. statutory materials, U.S. Congressional Documents, all of the world’s constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, and more than 2,400 scholarly journals. The Government, Politics & Law package offers special collections on Criminal Justice in America, Religion and the Law, Women and the Law, Slavery in America and the World and more.
- Race Relations Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Race Relations Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. - Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Sociological Abstracts provides access to the world’s literature in sociology and related disciplines, both theoretical and applied. The database includes abstracts of journal articles selected from over 1,700 serial publications, abstracts of conference papers presented at various sociological association meetings, relevant dissertation listings fromDissertation Abstracts International, enhanced bibliographic citations of book reviews, and abstracts of selected sociology books.
Films:
- List of Native American Films in DELCATThis is an example search that could help you find films and documentaries on Native Americans.
- American History in Video This link opens in a new windowA collection of videos available online for the study of American history, with 2,000 hours and more than 5,000 titles on completion. The collection allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries.
- Delaware's Forgotten People - DPAA four-part documentary on YouTube on the Nanticoke Indians from the Delaware Public Archives Motion Picture Collection.
- American County Histories to 1900 This link opens in a new window
Histories of cities and counties of the original thirteen states (with the exception of Virginia), plus Vermont and Maine. The collection includes more than 2,700 large volumes that have been manually rekeyed. It provides vivid portraits of people, places, and events—not just national figures, but local figures, demographics, social, economic, and cultural transformations.
- American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
Traces the progress of American History. Covers the major themes of the period from colonization and settlement through the revolution, expansion, politics, slavery, the Civil War and reconstruction, to World War II. (Coverage: 1493-1945)
- Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new window
Spanning 4 centuries and covering North and Central America, this database provides access to material from the Newberry Library’s extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection; one of the strongest archival collections on American Indian history in the world.
- Indigenous Newspapers in North America This link opens in a new window
Publications of a range of indigenous communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the U.S. and Canada. (Coverage: 1828-2016 - majority of material from 1970-2016)
- American State Papers, 1739-1838 This link opens in a new window
Historical legislative and executive documents of Congress. (Coverage: 1789-1838)
- Colonial America This link opens in a new window
All volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK. Consists of original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies. (Coverage: 1606-1822)
- Colonial America This link opens in a new window
All volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK. Consists of original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies. (Coverage: 1606-1822)
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
An integrated platform that combines Gales digital archives into a single cross-searchable interface to enhance the ability to discover primary source documents from multiple collections. Over 50 collections are available to University of Delaware users on this platform. (Coverage: 1500 -)
- Indigenous Peoples of North America This link opens in a new window
Explore the political, social and cultural history of Native peoples from the 16th - 20th centuries. Covers American Indian tribes and supporting organizations. Sourced from American and Canadian institutions, newspapers from various tribes and Indian-related organizations, manuscripts, drawings and sketches, photographs, maps, periodicals, monographs and more. Includes indigenous-language materials such as dictionaries, bibles, and primers. (Coverage: 1500-present)
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!