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HY 135: U.S. History to 1877: Finding Resources

This guide is for the HY 135 class at USA.

Research Resources

Before and during a research project, you will need to find resources. Your resources are materials like books and articles that help you understand and make an argument about your research topic. If you are starting from scratch and having trouble choosing a research topic, visit our How to Start a Research Project guide.

You can find quality resources online in two different ways:

  1. Through Google Scholar, the more academic version of Google.
  2. Through USA Library databases.

These two methods are great to use for the same research project. You might find resources through one website that you wouldn't have found through the other.

How to Search a Database

Databases do not understand questions like Google can.

Databases talk through search queries. 

Search queries are combinations of search terms, Boolean Operators, and punctuation.

  • Search terms
    • Break your research question down into individual words or small phrases.
  • Boolean Operators
    • Follow the Boolean Operators page.
  • Punctuation Marks
    • " " - Quotation marks means you want that exact phrase to be searched. Not all databases follow this.
      • "Carnegie Library" - you only get resources that have "Carnegie Library" exactly.
    • ? - Truncation/Wildcard symbol. Tells the database to substitute any letter there.
      • bibliograph? = bibliography, bibliographies, bibliographic...
      • read? = read, reading, reader, readmit, readdress...

Suggested Search Terms

You can learn how to create your own search terms in the How to Start a Research Project guide.

Here are some examples of possible searches:

  • "united states" "colonial period"
  • women "colonial period" diar?
  • american newspapers colonial
  • "indians of north america"
  • colonial “united states” letter?
  • newspaper? "united states" bibliograph?
  • "thomas jefferson" correspondence

Recommended Databases

Google Scholar

You can use Google Scholar to find versions of articles that you can access for free. 

Whenever you use Google Scholar, make sure to be logged into your JagMail account on that browser. Google Scholar will then understand that you have access to USA Libraries. 

In Google Scholar, you can search by author, article title, or subject. 

1. Search Google Scholar. Find an article in which you are interested.

Screenshot of Google Scholar search result

2. Select the "Full-Text@USA" option below the article you want to read. You might need to click on the arrows to show this option. You may also see a PDF option to the side of the article's search result.

3. If you do not have any accessible version, you can still try to request access to the article through Interlibrary Loan.