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New Ebooks on Islam
HIST 12A: 10 Page Research Paper
Welcome to SCU Library. Today you are going to
- Pick a topic
- Find one book or article (secondary source)
- Learn how to search for primary sources
Finals will come quickly. Let's get started today.
Share Your Research Topic, Ask Questions
1. Respond to the Padlet below during our session
Share your topic —the more specific, the better—and ask questions for the librarian.
We'll return to this throughout the session to discuss.
2. Start a Google doc to make note of what you do today
If you follow along during the session on your own computer, it will be useful to have a document to save your permalinks, ideas, and search terms.
Browse for topics
Still unsure about what you want to do for your paper? Use these tools to help you get ideas.
- Oxford Bibliographies - Islamic Studies This link opens in a new windowContains lists of books and journal articles arranged alphabetically by topic on a wide range of scholarly research related to Islam, including history, theology, law, philosophy, literature, art, and architecture.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowThis database provides full-text articles from over 600 reference sources, as well as access to a wide range of information sources that include images, audio, and video. Topic Pages are informative overviews, and Mind Map assists narrowing and focusing research topics to improve database searching.
Start Searching
3. Start Searching
Find a Book (books are usually secondary sources)
OSCAR
Use OSCAR, the Library's catalog, to search for books. You may get other stuff, but mostly you'll get books.
Enter keywords or the title of a book you'd like.
OneSearch
You can also use OneSearch to find books and articles at the same time. If you go this route, practice becoming expert at using OneSearch.
- OSCAR - SCU Library Catalog This link opens in a new window
Or Find Articles (Secondary Sources)
There are many databases that are good for topics of cultures of Islam. Try this trick:
Search Historical Abstracts, ATLA Religion, Academic Search Complete, and OmniFile all at once.
Enter any one of these databases individually, and following the directions below.
- Historical Abstracts with full-text This link opens in a new windowContains articles, books, book reviews, and dissertations on the history of the world (except United States and Canada) from the 15th century to the present, and publication dates go from the 19th century to the present.
- ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials This link opens in a new windowATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials contains records of journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, dissertations, reports, commentaries, and obituaries related to religion from 1949 to present and a few from the 19th century.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowThis multidisciplinary database provides access to over 5,600 active full-text journals and over 6,500 open access journals. Covers topics that range from business, education, social sciences, humanities, engineering, and science. Coverage varies, updates also vary.
- OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database providing indexing, abstracts, and full text from six of H.W. Wilson's full-text databases: Education Full Text, General Science Full Texts, Humanities Full Text, Readers' Guide Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text, and Business Full Text. Also available are full-text articles from five periodical databases: Applied Science & Technology, Art, BIological & Agricultural Index, Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, and Library Literature & Information Science. Indexing begins 1982, Abstracts 1984, and Full-text coverage 1994. Updated daily.
4. Evaluate your progress
What info do you have now, and what info do you still need?
Do you need more primary sources? Check out the primary sources tab.
5. Refine and Repeat
Research is iterative. Depending on where your search takes you, you will have to return to any of these steps as you work through the research process.