This Libguide Page is designed to help you do research for your World Civilizations Class.
1. Accessing and searching library databases for secondary source materials.
2. The best websites and databases for primary source materials.
3. Understanding when, why, and how to cite your sources in MLA.
1. Pull the important words and terms (keywords and phrases) from your paper topic or thesis.
2. Input keywords NOT full sentences or questions into a library database search bar.
3. Use quotation marks around phrases that MUST be kept together: "green house" , "Russian Revolution" , "human rights" for example.
4. Write the word AND in between your keywords or "phrases". AND tells the database that you want it to give you results that include both of your keywords/"phrases" and not just one of them.
5. If your keywords or "phrases" are not giving you the desired result, think of other words or "phrases" to search with.
6. Use the filter options in the library databases to select what types of sources you want, the date range of publication, and even the subject.
7. For primary sources make sure the date of the source corresponds with the time period of the event.
| Primary |
Primary Sources are first hand, immediate accounts from people who experienced an historical event or topic. Examples of primary sources are: photographs, memoirs and autobiographies, government documents from the given time period, letters and diaries, artifacts, newspaper and magazine articles from the given time period, interviews, oral histories, and maps from the given time period. |
| Secondary |
Secondary Sources are works created by people who DID NOT experience an historical event or topic. Often time secondary sources use and analyze primary sources to back up their arguments. Examples of Secondary Sources are: academic research articles, scholarly books, biographies |
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1. We use MLA format. When looking up citation information make sure to write or select MLA
2. In Ebsco you can automatically cite! 
3. In other databases you can also automatically cite. Just look for this 
AND ALWAYS SELECT MLA.
If you are citing from a website, use one of the following links below to help you generate a citation.