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FYW: World of the Founding Fathers: Background Information
Background print and digital
- U.S. History (Gale In Context)U.S. History In Context provides a complete overview of our nation’s past that covers the most-studied events, decades, conflicts, wars, political and cultural movements, and people. Includes over 5,000 primary source documents, reference materials, and journal titles.
- World History (Gale In Context)Collection of reference materials, full-text articles from scholarly publications, an array of primary sources, and images, maps and charts which provide geographic and chronologic research materials for the study of world history. Coverage of ancient Europe to Latin America and from the Far East to the Renaissance.
- American National BiographyAmerican National Biography offers portraits of more than 18,700 men and women whose lives have shaped the nation. Each entry traces a person's life through the sequence of significant events as they occurred from birth to death. Features over 2,700 illustrations, more than 80,000 cross-references, and links to select web sites.
- Dictionary of National BiographyAn illustrated collection of more than 57,000 specially written biographies of the men and women from around the world who shaped all aspects of Britain's past. Updated three times a year (each January, May and October), adding new biographies from the Romans to the 21st century.
- Biography (Gale In Context)Combines over 280,000 biographies from sources such as Contemporary Authors, Encyclopedias of World Biography, Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, etc.
- The American Revolution, 1775-1783 : An EncyclopediaCall Number E208 .A433 1993
2 Vols. - The Founding Fathers ReconsideredCall Number: E302.5 .B47 2009 (also online)
Starting with background information
Become familiar with the ideas, major concepts and basic vocabulary in your chosen research area. Such background knowledge places your topic in a wider context, deepens your understanding and helps you feel more comfortable with it.
- Encyclopedias are a great place to get an overview of a topic that is new to you.
Encyclopedias often identify narrower areas within the broad subject, which may suggest a focus for your research. Many encyclopedia article entries also provide a list of references that can help you locate further, more in-depth and scholarly information sources. - Work from general to specific.
If a general encyclopedia doesn't provide enough background information, continue your research with focused subject encyclopedias. Wikipedia can be a place to find specific names, dates and events, but use it mainly as a jumping off point. The library has scholarly subject encyclopedias which provide reliable and in depth information. - Subject dictionaries can help define unfamiliar words and specialized terminology when researching a new subject in specific disciplines.
- Remember: Encyclopedias are good starting points, but don’t contain ALL the information you'll need on a subject for college level research.
- Get started: Look up your keywords in the indexes to subject encyclopedias. Read articles in these encyclopedias to set the context for your research. Note any additional keywords and relevant items in the references at the end of the encyclopedia articles.
General Background
- Oxford Reference OnlineIndexes the full text of over 100 Oxford subject encyclopedias and dictionaries.
- Gale EbooksGale eBooks is a Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
- Sage Reference OnlineOnline versions of reference titles from Sage Publications.
- U.S. History (Gale In Context)U.S. History In Context provides a complete overview of our nation’s past that covers the most-studied events, decades, conflicts, wars, political and cultural movements, and people. Includes over 5,000 primary source documents, reference materials, and journal titles.