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HIS-121 & 122: United States History

This guide presents resources for the study of United States History, from the “pre-history” of native North American Indians to the period of exploration and discovery in the late fifteenth century, through the present.

Find articles

These are the main databases that may be useful in your historical research:

Academic Search Complete and other EBSCOhost databases

Advanced Searching on the New EBSCO User Interfaces - Tutorial, created by EBSCO Tutorials (YouTube video)

Access World News

Factiva

Learn Keyword Searching within Factiva, created by Dow Jones (YouTube video)

Issues & Controversies in History

Issues & Controversies in History as an idea-generating tool, created by St. Ignatius College Prep Wilsey Library (YouTube video)

JSTOR

JSTOR isn't Google: Quick tips on searching JSTOR, created by JSTOR (YouTube video)

Project Muse

How to do a Search on Project MUSE, created by Project MUSE (YouTube video)

Wiley Online Library

Wiley Online Library, created by Manchester Metropolitan University Library Services (YouTube video)

Building Search Strings, Part 1: Boolean Operators, created by OSLIS Secondary Videos (YouTube video)

AND

Type AND between your keywords to narrow your search. The database or search engine will only retrieve those articles or web pages that contain both words. Using AND will decrease the number or hits or articles or web pages in your result list.

Example: school AND crime

Note: Some databases and search engines (such as Google and Craigslist) allow you to type a plus sign (+) in front of a keyword when doing a basic search. This works the same as AND.

Example: +school +crime

 

Boolean operator venn diagram - school AND crime

OR

OR Type OR between your keywords to broaden your search. The database or search engine will retrieve those articles or web pages that contain at least one of these words. Using OR will increase the number of articles or web pages in your result list (especially if not used in combination with AND or NOT). Use OR between keywords that are synonyms or have similar meanings. Example: baby OR infant

 

Boolean operator venn diagram - baby OR infant

NOT

Type NOT before a keyword to exclude that keyword from your search. Using NOT will decrease the number of articles or web pages in your result list. The best use of NOT is when you are searching for a keyword that may have multiple meanings.

Example: bat NOT baseball

 

Boolean operator venn diagram bat NOT baseball

Combining Boolean Operators

Use parentheses ( ) to keep combination searches in order. In the example below, the database or search engine will retrieve articles or web pages that must contain the word law and at least one of the words in parentheses.

Example: (ecstasy OR mdma) AND law

 

Boolean operator venn diagram - law AND (ecstasy OR MDMA)

Truncation

Truncation, also known as stemming, uses a character such as asterisk (*) or question mark (?) at the end of a word, which allows you to search for a root form of a word and pick up any ending.

Example: typing teen* will find teen, teens, teenage, teenager, teenagers.

Notes:

  • Be careful not to end the stem or root of a word too early to retrieve too many results. Example: typing cat* will find cat, cats, catalog, catastrophe, catsup, etc.
  • Different databases use different symbols to truncate words. However, most of our popular databases, such as our library catalogAcademic Search Complete and Access World News (NewsBank) use an asterisk (*) as their truncation symbol. If in doubt, check the "Help" screen for the truncation symbol.
  • Some search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, automatically use truncation without you having to type a truncation symbol.

Wildcard Symbols

Wildcard symbols can be typed in place of a letter or letters within a keyword if you are not sure of the spelling or if there are different forms of the root word.

Example: wom?n will find both women and woman.

Note: Again, check the Help or Tips links available on most library databases and Internet search engines to verify the wildcard symbol that should be used - usually an asterisk (*) or question mark (?)

virginia's community college login screen

If you click on any Reynolds Libraries database link from off-campus, you will be prompted with a Virginia's Community Colleges login screen. Use your My Reynolds username & multifactor authentication (MFA) to access any of the library databases from off-campus. 

  1. From the Virginia's Community Colleges login screen, enter your username then click on the Go button.
  2. When prompted, enter your Authorizing PIN number on your mobile phone.. .

If you cannot login from off campus, email library@reynolds.edu or call 804.523.5211 - or - 523-5220.

ProQuest Central eBooks Note: If you are accessing a ProQuest Central eBook from ON or OFF campus, you will be prompted with a Virginia's Community Colleges login screen. If you are accessing a ProQuest Central eBook from the library catalog, you will also be prompted to select your institution, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.

Complete the form and we will see if we can find the full-text article through another library. You can also open this request form in a new window to complete it.