Doing Research

Workshop for HIST 7B Black America II: Freedom and Anti-colonial Movements

Christina Bush (she/her)

Research & Instruction Librarian

Simon Elichko (they/he)

Social Sciences & Data Librarian

Workshop Agenda:

  • Survey results
  • Making sense of scholarly research
  • Exploring the library
  • Comparing research approaches
     

Survey Results

What do you find challenging about finding sources?

Primary Document Analysis

The proposal must consist of a description of the document, a tentative argument, and a bibliography of at least 3 secondary sources.

 

Students are not permitted to use scholarly secondary sources (books or academic articles) from on the syllabus. Instead, students are expected to do their own research and consult the librarians for potential relevant scholarly secondary sources.

 

Primary document analysis proposal due 4/19/16

Final draft of primary document analysis due 5/8/26

 

Strong autobiography or biography reports explain the broader historical context of the text and connect it to themes from the class. These reports must cite at least 3 additional secondary sources to contextualize the text.

 

Autobiography or biography report due 3/15/26

Autobiography/Biography Report

Making sense of scholarly research

Information Timeline Graphic by adstarkel. Used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

How do you know if a source is scholarly?

Elizabeth J. West article in The Conversation

Secondary Sources:
Books & Book Chapters

You'll often see chapters published in edited collections, for example:

Summers, Martin. “Diagnosing the Ailments of Black Citizenship: African American Physicians and the Politics of Mental Illness, 1895–1940.” In Precarious Prescriptions: Contested Histories of Race and Health in North America, edited by Martin Summers, Laurie B. Green, and John McKiernan-González, 91–114. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt6wr7rq.8.

Secondary Sources: Journal Articles

Explore scholarly journals in Browzine and Tripod

 

Example articles:

Tompkins, Kyla Wazana. ""Everything'Cept Eat Us": The Antebellum Black Body Portrayed as Edible Body." Callaloo 30.1 (2007): 201-224.

 

Sullivan, Mecca Jamilah. "Fat Mutha: Hip Hop's Queer Corpulent Poetics." Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International 2.2 (2013): 200-213.

Identifying scholarly books and articles

  • Who published it?
    • University presses such as Duke, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Chicago, Penn, Rutgers, Wisconsin
    • Non-university presses that often publish scholarly books include Routledge, Berghahn, Rowman and Littlefield, Springer/Palgrave
    • Journals like American Historical Review and Journal of African American History have an editorial board and require articles to go through peer review before publishing
       
  • Who wrote it?
    • Does the author have training in history? Another field?
    • What kind of expertise do they have about the topic?
       
  • How does this source engage with other research?
    • Do you see citations to other scholarship?
    • Are there notes and/or references at the end of the book or article?

Exploring the library

source: McMaster University Library

Books at the Libraries

Example call number:
HQ 1163 .H55 2022

← H = Social Sciences

Call number starts with Floor in McCabe
A-E Lower Floor
F-K 2nd Floor
L-Z 3rd Floor

Tutorial: How to find a book in McCabe

Getting books from the library

  1. Pair up with a classmate
  2. Take the paper slip with your book title and call number
  3. Scan the QR code to open the tutorial on finding a book in McCabe
  4. Do two things:
         • Use the call number to find your book on the shelf
         • Find a second book nearby that looks interesting
Call number starts with Floor in McCabe
A-E Lower Floor
F-K 2nd Floor
L-Z 3rd Floor

1. Go to Tripod: swarthmore.edu/libraries

2. Search for your book's title to find its record in Tripod.     

  • Choose the result for the book itself, not a book review (although these can be useful)
  • If you see multiple matching titles, choose the physical / paper copy

3. Explore the subjects used to describe your book.

  • Scroll down to Details section. Find the section labeled Subject.
  • Click on a subject tag. What do you find (if anything)?  (e.g. African Americans -- Medical care)
  • What if you modify the search (e.g. remove the second subject)? Or try using filters?

How to find relevant books

Using subject tags in Tripod to find books on your topic

4. Scroll down to the Virtual Browse section for a book

  • What do you notice?

Two quick notes on accessing books

 

Borrowing & Reading Books

Some books in Tripod are available to read online.

You can borrow physical books from the TriCo libraries. Generally you can keep books for the semester.

If you login to Tripod, you'll see the option: Request Physical Copy.


The book will be brought to the library front desk for you, usually the next day. Works for Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford books.

 

To borrow a Swarthmore book, request it in Tripod or bring it to the front desk.

TriCo
Login to Tripod to request delivery (arrives 1-2 days)

E-Z Borrow
Borrow from academic libraries in PA, NJ  (arrives in ~1 week)

Worldcat &
Interlibrary Loan

Borrow books, journals, microfilm, DVDs, etc. from all over the world. (arrives in 1-3 weeks)

   Penn      Drexel     Temple     NYU      Rutgers

  Swat          Haverford      Bryn Mawr

 Oxford       Columbia      University of Amsterdam

Harvard       Stanford     Museum of Natural History

You can access materials from TriCo libraries and beyond

You can also request PDFs of articles & book chapters not owned in the TriCo.

Comparing research approaches & tools

Useful tools for finding
secondary sources

We already looked at the Tripod library catalog, which helps you find books (etc.) available from the TriCo libraries.

 

Now let's try some databases, which help you find journal articles, book reviews, and (sometimes) books:

Same search, different databases

Each person should search a different database:

Everyone should try the same search:
Black Panther Party

 

Once you have some results, compare with others at your table. What do you notice about the differences and similarities among JSTOR, Project Muse, America History and Life, and ProQuest Social Sciences? 

Narrowing your searches and getting better results

What filters are available to narrow down your results?

How useful are they?

Do a phrase search by putting your terms inside quotation marks like this:  "Black Panther Party"

  • What happens to the number of results you get?
  • Do you notice anything about the relevance of the results?

Change your search terms and observe what happens:  
"Black Panther Party" OR "Black Power"

Add parentheses and another search term. What should happen?
("Black Panther Party" OR "Black Power") AND (feminism)

Look through your results

Can you find a book review?

  • How can you tell it's a review?
  • What journal is the review published in?

Can you find a copy of the book in Tripod?
Open a new tab and look up the book (tripod.swarthmore.edu)

Has anyone cited this book?

Go to Google Scholar (scholar.google.com). Search for the book title. Instead of clicking on the book itself, click on "Cited by #"

Time to explore

Get some practice navigating the secondary literature

Research Help & Advice

 

More options: