Begin building a bibliography. Using
the WRLC catalogue, locate the subject and keyword headings that most closely
correspond to your topic. Skim to get a sense of
what important secondary works are available. Then move on to the
databases of scholarly journals discussed earlier. Talk to faculty
with special expertise on your topic. Talk to reference librarians.
Try to locate the "best" books and
"best" articles on your topic. For details, click on:
Searching
for the Best Books and Articles on my Topic.
If possible, locate a recent
"essay review" or bibliographical essay on your topic. Essay
reviews typically discuss recent studies and
major issues on a topic. Good bibliographical essays can sometimes be
found in recent books on a topic. Using the WRLC catalogue, open the
listing for recent books, check under "Notes" to discover whether or
not the book has a bibliographical essay. They can also be found in
special sections of the Journal of American History and the American
Historical Review. Many also appear in Reviews in American History.
Your essay should place your proposed topic in the context
of what other historians have written, emphasizing the variety of approaches and
how your own study will contribute to our understanding of the topic. Use
footnotes to identify important books and articles about which you are writing.
Alsp attach a copy of your bibliography of
relevant secondary sources. Please note: your
footnotes and bibliography must follow the Turabian
or Chicago
style manual. You might want to pick up a hard copy, second hand; or
access the current edition on line (free for the first 30 days) at:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html. A very brief
introduction to the Chicago style is available on the Bedford Books website at:
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c10_s1.html. You should begin familiarizing yourself with this style manual, as it will
dictate how you prepare footnotes and bibliographical citations, as well as the
overall format of both your Prospectus and Major Seminar Paper.
Bibliographies that do not follow this style manual will not be accepted.
You can, of course, save yourself a great deal of time by using Endnote or
Zotero.
If you include web sites, please observe
the citation format above. More importantly, be careful to evaluate web
sites you use by familiarizing yourself with the criteria for evaluating web
sites prepared by Librarians at UCLA: "Thinking Critically about
Discipline Based World Wide Web" at:
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/critical/discipline.htm.
