HISTORY 100.61
Warfare in Africa: Myths and Realities
(http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/faculty/moyd.html)
Compiled by Eric Kofi Acree, Librarian
ea18@cornell.edu, (607) 255-5229
Developing
a Search Strategy:
Search strategy is a library term for the process of finding information
in a logical, step-by-step manner. Using a search strategy insures that
you will find the information and materials you need as quickly and
efficiently as possible.
Research Steps:
- Choose your topic
- Find background information
- Find books on your topic
- Find periodical articles
- Using WWW to Find Internet Resources
- Evaluate your sources
- Cite your sources
Finding Background Information (Reference Books):
- Africana:
the Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, editors. New York: Basic
Civitas Books, 1999. (Africana & Olin Ref + DT 14 A37435 2005)
With over 4300 articles, this five volume encyclopedia includes coverage of prominent African, African American and Afro-Latin American individuals; political, economic and social trends; art and architecture; business and trade; religious traditions; literature; & political movements & human rights organizations.
- Africa
South of the Sahara. London : Europa Publications Ltd. 1971 -
. (Africana & Olin Ref DT351 A25 +; also Africana)
An annual compendium of up-to-date information and data surveying the geography, recent history, politics, and economy of sub-Saharan African countries. Each country profile includes statistical tables and a directory of government agencies, national media outlets, and trade associations. Also contains background articles by experts on the region.
-
Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara. John Middleton, Editor-in-chief. 4 vols. New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1997.(Africana & Olin Ref DT351 E53x)
Considered the standard multi-volume encyclopedia on the history and culture of sub-Saharan Africa, each signed article contains a bibliography of related readings. Entries on specific events or individuals tend to be shorter, while those on broader subjects (Death, Mourning and Ancestors; Gender; Archaeology and Prehistory; Diaspora) are much longer and quite substantive.
- The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Science. 1991. (OLIN REF JA 61 B62 1991)
Provides a succinct guide to the central concepts used in the study of the political institutions of advanced industrial societies, the principal political organizations and movements in these societies and the main types of political community. Includes an index and lists of additional readings.
- The
Middle East and North Africa London: Europa, 1964- . (Uris Ref DS
49 M62; also Olin and Africana)
An annual publication, divided into three sections: Part I gives background information on the Middle East and North Africa, Part II lists its regional organizations, and Part III lists, alphabetically, all of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa with long, descriptive essays and much statistical data.
- Encyclopedia of African History (Olin DT 20 .E53 2005)
Covering the entire continent from Morocco, Libya, and Egypt in the north to the Cape of Good Hope in the south, and the surrounding islands from Cape Verde in the west to Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles in the east, this A-Z reference examines the history of the entire African continent.
- Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History, (Africana & Olin DT 29 .E53 2003)
With nearly 250 individually signed entries, the Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century African History explores the ways in which the peoples of Africa and their polities, states, societies, economies, environments, cultures and arts were transformed during the course of that century.
Whether you are clicking your way across the Web, searching for resources in the Cornell Library Catalog, or looking for scholarly articles in specialized subject databases, being aware of a few simple techniques can improve the effectiveness of your searches.
Do you know how to use the following search techniques?
- keywords vs. phrase searching
- boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT (for combining search terms)
- truncation and wildcard symbols (for finding singular, plural, and other keyword variations)
- field searching (for narrowing a search to specific parts of a record)
- controlled vocabulary (subject headings)
See the following sites for details on how to refine
and perfect your search results:
Introduction
to Database Searching Skills
Search
Strategies
Finding Books:
Cornell Library Online Catalog
The Cornell University Library Catalog includes the holdings of 20 Cornell
University libraries. -- CU
Library Catalog Help Pages
Worldcat
OCLC WorldCat is a catalog of the holding of books, journal and other materials held by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) members libraries.
Distinguishing Scholarly From Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria
Academic Search Premier
Provides citations and abstracts for articles from over 4,140 journals, and includes full text from over 3,170 journals.
ArticleFirst
Indexes over 10,000 periodicals in science, technology, medicine, social
sciences, business, the humanities, and popular culture.
Black
Studies On Disc CD-ROM (Located in Africana Library)
Information on materials by and about African Americans, Africa and
peoples of African ancestry. Includes catalog of the Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture and citations from the Index to Black
periodicals, 1989-present.
Communication & Mass Media Complete
CMMC offers a collection of more than 230 full text journals, offers cover-to-cover ( related to the study of communication, mass media, and other associated disciplines. Incorporates CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association) and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Penn State)"core") indexing and abstracts for over 300 journals, and selected ("priority") coverage of over 100 more, for a combined coverage of over 600 titles.
Ethnic
Newswatch
Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of the newspapers, magazines
and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.
Factiva
Factiva provides access to global news and business information, including
local newspapers, same-day newswires, company reports, and media programs.
Index to Black Periodicals, Africana Library Reference Z 1361 .N39 I38
A yearly author and subject index to about 25 Afro-American periodicals of general and scholarly interest. The journals which are included cut across such disciplines as psychology, sociology, education, history and popular culture, etc. It was formerly called the Index to Periodicals By and About Blacks, and is the best source available for articles from black journals. Black Studies on disc is available at Africana. It contains entries from the Index to Black Periodicals from 1989.
JSTOR
JSTOR is a fully-searchable database containing the back issues of several
hundred scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics,
music, ecology and botany, business, and other fields. It includes the
following collections: Arts & sciences I, II and III, General science,
Ecology and botany, Business, Language and literature.
LexisNexis
Academic
Provides access to full text resources on topics including current and
general news; business and financial information; newspapers; company
directories; government and politics; medical and health topics; accounting,
auditing, and tax; federal and state laws; legal cases; and regulations.
Resources include TV and radio news transcripts.
PCI
Index to thousands of periodicals in the arts, humanities and social sciences across more than 300 years, covering each periodical from its first issue. Every article is indexed. The scope is international, including journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages. Previously known as Periodicals Contents Index (PCI).
PAIS international
Contains citations to public policy literature of economics, government, law, international business, political science, public administration, and other social sciences. It includes references to journal articles, books, government documents, reports and pamphlets in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.
ProQuest Research Library
Available as part of the ProQuest Direct system, Periodical Abstracts
indexes and abstracts an extensive number of periodicals, covering general
interest magazines and scholarly journals in the social sciences, humanities
and sciences. Also included are citations and abstracts to selected
television and radio programs. Full text of many articles is provided.
African Studies Internet Resources
The resources on these pages will aid you in finding current and historical information on various African countries.
Google Scholar
Provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles.
Darfur: A Selected Bibliography
This bibliography provides selected resoures on the crisis in Darfur.
Give credit where credit is due.
Cornell University Code
of Academic Integrity
By properly citing the sources you use in your research
projects you are both identifying the resources that you used to complete
your work and you are formally acknowledging the authors or creators
of those resources. This allows others to find what you have found and
to verify your research.
When to cite:
If you quote an author, even if you are only borrowing a single key word, you need to tell your reader the origin of the quotationYou also need to cite a source:
if you restate an idea, thesis, or opinion stated by an author
if you restate an expert's theory or opinion
if you use facts that are not common knowledge
if you need to provide an informational or explanatory note
(http://www.oslis.k12.or.us/secondary/howto/cited/cited01.html)
MLA Handbook For Writers of Research Papers
CU Reference: Africana, Olin, Uris, ILR, and Fine Arts Libraries
at call number: LB 2369 .G53x 2003
MLA Citation Style (Cornell University)
MLA Citation Style Handout (Cornell University)
