• What scholarly conversations are relevant to your topic?
• What are the "layers" of your topic? Where would you locate your topic in the bigger picture?

The answers to these questions help determine what areas you need to consult in secondary sources and inform your keyword selection in library catalogs and article databases. In addition to using databases that are probably familiar to you (e.g., Historical Abstracts, JSTOR), ask a librarian for suggestions about what other databases might be appropriate for your topic. There are many specialized databases and article indexes that could allow you to identify unique and important sources.

When evaluating a source, consider how you might use it. Using the BEAM taxonomy above, estimate how it would fit into your project. Primary sources are exhibits in this taxonomy. A secondary source might provide both background and argument, or you may only be interested in the background information that it provides. If there are secondary sources that include major arguments about the significance and meaning of your topic, you will probably want to read and include them. In terms of method, you may find a source on a topic different than yours that uses a type of primary source in a way that you would like to emulate in your project, or there may be books or articles that include theories about why events took place, or why they're significant that contribute to your theoretical ideas.

Research tip: Visualize your topic. Make a grid and label the top row (headings) with what you consider to be the BIG subtopics of your topic. In each column, brainstorm relevant synonyms, people's names, organizations, concepts, ideas, places. Looking at this layout can sometimes reveal possibilities for a thread that runs across the columns, or a different way of organizing what the main ideas are. This grid will change and evolve as you do your research.

If there's a secondary source (for instance, a book or scholarly journal article by a historian) that you're engaging with extensively in your paper, you will probably want to find out how other scholars have responded to this source. One way to do that is to use the library database, Web of Science.

Start in the Social Sciences Citation Index. Depending on your topic, you may want to add the Arts and Humanities Citation Index using the Editions drop down menu.

Choose CITED REFERENCES from the search menu.

Enter the author name as LAST FIRST INITIAL (example: Merrill J)

If you're looking for a book as a cited reference, you may want to leave the TITLE field blank and choose the matches from the list of results. This is because the index abbreviates book titles in irregular ways. You may also want to enter the publication date as a range, since authors cite the hardback, paperback and different edition publication years accordingly.

If you're looking for a journal article as a cited reference, enter the publication year. For Cited Work, use the green AZ circle to search the index of abbreviations for journal titles and select the abbreviation(s) for the journal title. DO NOT ENTER THE ARTICLE TITLE.

After checking the matching items, click the See Results box at the top of the page.

Explore the Citation Network box in individual items to find more related books and articles.

Think creatively about what types of primary sources may exist to inform your research questions.

Populate your topic with people, events, and controversies that provide keywords to help you find primary sources.

Determine what primary sources actually exist, what they can answer, and what you are able to use (i.e., is it in a language you can read? is it in an archive you can visit?).

Interrogate your primary sources. Read them against other sources.

Be flexible and open to allowing your primary sources to inform and guide your inquiry about your historical topic.

Research tip: Visualize your primary source possibilities. The grid below suggests different types of sources often used in historical research; what types of sources will speak to your particular topic? Keep in mind that these different types of sources can be found in different places--for example, British parliamentary papers and U.S. congressional documents are in separate databases. Similarly, there are databases for art and images, and other databases for news (and for oral histories, and for the records of the NAACP, etc., etc.). Thinking about your primary sources in this way can help you construct your own roadmap for research.