When searching the the catalog and databases for sources, do not type in whole sentences.
e.g.Henry VIII, Henry the 8th, Henry Tudor
Narrow your focus by adding a sub-topic: Marriages; War with France; Church of England
Search Norse (broader) instead of Vikings
or Black Death (narrower) instead of Plague
Use the asterisk * to truncate words and widen your search. Crusad* will search for Crusade, Crusading Crusades and Crusaders.
Use quotation marks to keep phrases together: e.g. "Henry VIII" "Magna Carta"
e.g. search "Henry VIII" AND Annul* AND Marriage
or Henry Tudor AND "Catherine of Aragon" AND Divorce
"Henry VIII" AND "Catherine of Aragon" AND Annul*
Try your search terms in different combinations to get the greatest number of results.
Include Country or Regional names to disambiguate: Henry IV of France ≠ Henry IV of England
|
King Henry IV of France (1550 - 1610) |
King Henry IV of England (1367 - 1413) |
Pourbous, Frans the Younger. Henry IV, King of France in Armour. Ca.1610. Oil on canvas. Musee de Louvre, Paris. https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010060874
King Henry IV. Ca. 1590-1610. Oil on panel. National Portrait Gallery, London. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/king-henry-iv-158538
If you are finding too many articles on your topic here are some ways to narrow down your results:
Use the date limiters to look at only the past few years (5 or 8 yrs). You can change the date results before or after your search.
Some terms have multiple meanings and may return irrelevant results:
Viking = Mars Lander; Middle Ages = older people
Use additional or alternative keywords to focus your results
Viking AND Norse; Viking and Medieval; Viking and Scandinavia
If you are getting too many irrelevant results (e.g. works about Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar or Handel's Opera Julius Caesar in Egypt) try adding keywords such as History, Biography, Civilization, Life
Detail of one of the Stora Hammars Stones, Gotland, Sweden.
Source: Berig. "Hammars (I)." [Photo]. Wikimedia Commons, 24 June 2008. Retrieved from commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4306915. Accessed 17 March 2017.
By Berig - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4306915
