Water Rites
Sample Research (Humanities)
Plan B - Three Days
Step Three: Searching The Library Catalog
After collecting your background information, you need to start refining your information. Books offer a great place to begin this process, because they allow you to pick and choose from already collected information. Keeping this in mind, your topic might be buried in a book. To combat this problem, use the table of contents and the index.
To find books, use the library catalog by clicking on the keyword search on the main page. Remember to keep changing your keywords as you go along. You should also check and see what the subject headings are for the topic.
- For example, when I looked "Christianity History" I got too many hits
- I refined it by changing it to "Church foundation"
- When I looked at the library of congress heading it turned out to be "Church History--Primative and Early Church"
- When I clicked on this, I got a much more manageable of a list.
Once you have your books, skim through them to find what you need. Use the Index and Table of Contents!