• Look up your keywords in the indexes to subject encyclopedias.
• Read articles in these encyclopedias to set the context for your research.
• Note relevant items in the bibliographies at the end of the encyclopedia articles.
• Additional background information may be found in your lecture notes, textbooks, and reserve readings.
Here are a few library resources to help you gather background information for your topic:
You probably already know a little something about the topic you chose, but it's important to find out more in order to write an intelligent research paper and/or make a good argument.
Ask yourself:
Reference resources help you find out more!
Library Research Guides lead you to the best resources to use when searching for information on your topic.
Always check to see if there's a Research Guide on your topic.
Gale E-books has hundreds of online reference sources. This is a great database to use to start researching your topic. You will get brief articles about your topic and most of the encyclopedias will provide bibliographies at the end of each article. Those bibliographies will often include titles of good books on that topic. Once you have the title, you can search in the library catalog to see if the Cerritos College library owns it and then you can check it out to use for your Exploration Project..
American Decades
American Decades: Primary Sources
Below is a screen shot from the end of an article about Spiro Agnew in American Decades - you can see the list of sources. I've circled a book reference that you could look up in the library catalog. There is one problem - there is a typo in the author's name - his name is William Safire not Satire!
