This module walks you through some—but by no means all—approaches to conducting a literature search on your chosen topic. As always, you should also ask for help from library staff if you are unsure or if you are hoping for specific advice.
What’s a literature search?
This is another way of saying “finding what scholarly articles and books have been published on a particular topic.” It is sometimes referred to in the shortened version “lit search.” It is an important first step for most essays and other research projects. (Then you should read the sources, of course, but first we have to actually find them.)
Why start at the library?
Libraries are important places to begin researching an historical topic. Secondary sources (books and articles) will help you learn more about your topic, and what has already been researched and argued about it. If you are writing a research essay or doing scholarly work, you want to produce new research or a new analytical interpretation of a topic, so it’s important to understand what’s already been done. If you are researching a topic for your own interest or for other purposes, the originality of your research may be less important, but it will still be useful to know what is out there, since this will help you understand your topic, choose search terms, locate other sources, and generally design your research. In addition, scholarly secondary sources should also include notes and bibliographies, which can give you new leads on relevant primary sources.
To begin this module, navigate to the next page to start identifying search terms for your library research.
If you prefer, you can use the menu below to navigate to specific research stages and skills in the module: