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Mapping Out Your Research
When starting research, it’s a good practice to map it out: What are some of the broader related topics? What are some narrower topics? Are there specific names of sites or individuals that are important? Mapping out research can help you see where to focus, and these topics can serve as entry points to finding books, articles, and other resources.
Examples:
- broader topics
history of Indianapolis, history of urban planning in the United States, 19th century American history - narrower topics
city planning in Indianapolis, Alexander Ralston's approach to city planning - synonyms or alternate names
city planning vs. urban planning, American history vs. history of the United States - named sites or individuals
Alexander Ralston, Monument Circle
Search Tip:
The topics and words you map out will help you identify which research databases are most relevant to your project and which keywords to use for starting your searches.
Research Resources
- OneSearchSearch for books, DVDs, building material samples, and other materials in the University Libraries and articles in select databases.
- Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals This link opens in a new window Key database in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and historic preservation. Also covers Archaeology, Decorative Arts, Interior Design, and Furniture. Some linked full text is included.
- Access World NewsA news-focused database which includes magazine articles, videos, transcripts, and other sources.
- America: History and LifeKey database for research in American and Canadian history. Indexes journals from the 1960's to the present, containing articles on all eras of American history.
- Business Source CompleteIndexes scholarly and popular journals, magazines, and newspapers. Covers city planning and offers full text for several planning journals.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window JSTOR allows you to search across approximately 2,000 journal titles from more than 50 disciplines. It contains complete backfiles of scholarly journals starting with the first issues, many of which date back from the 1800s. Although the majority of titles do not have the most recent 3 to 5 years available in full text, there are some which have the current issues available. Note: Additional content has been permanently added to JSTOR, including archived journal collections and primary resources. Searches performed using the databases page link will include results from the additional sources, as will the link above.
- New York Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Search the complete text of the New York Times from 1851 to 3 years prior to the current year. Includes PDF images of original articles with photographs and drawings, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, historical photos, stock photos, and advertisements. Note: An additional year of content is added annually.
- WorldCat This link opens in a new window WorldCat is the collected catalog of materials (such as books) owned by over 54,000 libraries worldwide. Great for exhaustive searches for books on a topic. Look for the "Request via interlibrary loan" in WorldCat records to borrow items from other libraries using Interlibrary Loan. Use the "Check OneSearch" link in the record to see if we have book first.