Welcome to the library guide for African American Studies!
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Full text of all 2,800+ academic journals on JSTOR that span more than 60 disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, along with millions of primary sources across four collections: Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa, and World Heritage Sites: Africa. Also explore 3+ million images from ARTstor and over 10,000 open access books. Note: The library does not license any collections of fee-based books from JSTOR. New collections added Aug 2023, are identified below. See more... for details.
1. Select a topic that interests you and do some pre-research. Look at course readings and class notes. Find information using Google, Wikipedia, CQ Researcher, or Credo Reference if you need ideas.
2. Consider the scope of your topic. If it is too narrow, you might have trouble finding enough information. If it is too broad, you can be overwhelmed with information.
Think about your assignment prompt while determining the scope of your topic. It is important to consider the size of the assignment and the length of time you have to complete it in thinking about scope.
3. Turn your focused topic into a research question. Know that your research question may change slightly depending on what sorts of resources you find. While you should have a topic or question in mind, allow the sources you find, along with your interests, to help shape and refine your topic further.
Questions to guide the development of your research question:
Is it focused enough to be covered in my paper or project?
Is there enough literature available on this topic?
What is the question that my research is answering?
Am I genuinely interested in this topic?
Is my topic going to be new and interesting to my audience?
How do you determine if a resource has quality, useful information?
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