• Most English-language primary sources will be from a U.S., British, or other English-speaking country's perspective.
• Most databases and catalogs have options for limiting searches or results by date. Limiting by date can make a results list in a database much more relevant and manageable. It is less helpful in a library catalog because some primary sources are published or reprinted years after the event.
• Consider using synonyms in your searches. It's especially important for assignments in this course because...
  • Language changes over time. Primary sources will use the terms used at the time the sources were created.
  • People from different cultures will use different terms, or spellings, to refer to the same things.
    • Example: British spelling: "defence"   American spelling: "defense"
  • Transliteration systems "are used to convert words from one writing system to another. Words written in non-Roman writing systems (e.g., Arabic, Russian, [Chinese]), may be transliterated into Roman letters in various ways. This can create problems when searching in a library catalog or database. Try variations to get good results." (Patricia Hardesty, Africa, Asia, Middle East Subject Guide, James Madison University Libraries, 2015.)
• When using synonyms in a search, connect each synonym with the word OR and group the synonyms in parentheses.
  • ​Example: (Nanking OR Nanjing)

Many of the primary sources we recommend for this course are in library "databases."  Think of library databases as containers, or streaming channels, for full-text articles, as well as some electronic books, digital images and movies, and digital versions of historical documents.  Some documents will be in more than one database; some will only be in one database.

Accessing databases

Many of these databases are ones that the UW-Madison Libraries pay a subscription fee to have access to (like a streaming service).  To access these databases, you have to use a link from a UW-Madison Libraries page, like the Libraries home page, or a course guide like this one.  When you click a link to access a database, you may be asked to log in with your UW-Madison netID and password.

When you click on a database name in this course guide, we'll usually take you to a page describing the database. Click on "Access database" in the upper right corner of that page to get into the database itself.

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