The pre-search is the very first phase of academic writing. All researchers, no matter how seasoned, goes through the information gathering stage in order to better understand both their research question, as well as the topic they are studying. Gathering basic information about context, timelines, alternative terms, and key figures will help simplify the academic research process. This page offers you resources to help you find this foundational information, as well as questions you may want to answer to help guide the research phase.
Bellow are some worksheets that can be used in the pre-search process. Please feel free to use them not in only this class, but in any other class, or assignment, they might prove helpful.
When get started in your pre-search, there are some basic questions you want to ask yourself.
What is the assignment criteria?
Make a list of the assignment criteria
If you have any questions about your assignment - now is the time to clarify them with your professor.
What information do you need?
After making sure you understand the criteria outlined in the assignment, ask yourself what information would help you answer your research question?
Background and context might include:
Helpful Hit: The sources you find in your pre-search are most likely NOT the sources you will eventually cite in your research papers. The pre-search sources are for the purpose of solidifying your understanding and help you generate search terms before you begin searching for scholarly/peer-reviewed articles or studies.
Bellow are some library databases that will help in the gathering of background and context information. When looking through these sources pay particularly close attention to the names of scholars and historical figures that feature prominently, as well as keywords that you can use when stating research in the academic databases.
World History Encyclopedia: Provides easily assessable information about Ancient Cultures. Reviewed and fact checked by experts.
Full-text encyclopedias on a range of topics that include in-depth, peer-reviewed summaries written by scholars across all fields of study.
Full-text reference works from Oxford University Press covering a broad range of subjects, and including timelines, quotations, and overviews.
Make sure to checkmark the "Only search content I have access to" box to limit results to titles that BGSU and OhioLINK subscribe to.
Thousands of scholarly monographs published by Cambridge University Press since 2015. An agreement with OhioLINK will add all newly published titles through 2025, then OhioLINK will purchase a subset for permanent access. Covers all subjects, with particular focus on area studies, history, and political science.
Coverage: 2015- Present
Best for: All subjects
Compatible Devices: Anything with a web browser, PDF
Contains: 8,500+ titles; under 100 are open access
Download: One chapter at a time
Link: https://libguides.bgsu.edu/cambridgeebook
Printing: One chapter at a time after downloading
Users: Unlimited users at a time per book
Around 2,700 handbooks providing up-to-date overviews of classic and current research across the Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, Psychology, Engineering, and Built Environment from Routledge and CRC Press.
Hundreds of short ebooks (around 100 pages each) that offer concise expert overviews of a diverse range of concepts. Subjects include climate, consciousness, game theory, ancient warfare, economics, and literary theory.
Alternate access link: http://proxy.ohiolink.edu:9099/login?url=https://academic.oup.com/pages/very-short-introductions
Coverage: 1995-present
Users: Unlimited
Contains: Online editions of over 600 short books in the Oxford University Press series "Very Short Introductions."
Best for: A wide range of subjects
Printing: Print individual chapters from PDF
Download: Individual chapters only for most texts
Compatible with: Any PDF compatible device/browser
eBook Academic Collection provides access to thousands of multidisciplinary ebook titles representing a broad range of academic subject matter including titles from leading university presses such as Oxford University Press, State University of New York Press, Cambridge University Press, University of California Press, MIT Press, Harvard University Press and many others. Additional academic publishers include Elsevier Ltd.; Brill Academic Publishers; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Sage Publications, Ltd. and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion features over 2,000 images and 800 in-depth articles that examine global dress cultures throughout history. It adopts a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach to highlight the richness of fashion. Additional reference works include Classic and Modern Writings on Fashion, the A-Z of Fashion, and The Dictionary of Fashion History, along with 200+ academic books on significant fashion writings. The encyclopedia also offers access to museum exhibitions and over 17,000 color images from renowned institutions, plus teaching resources like lesson plans and bibliographic guides.
Thousands of entries on people, concepts, books, and other topics in philosophy written by experts in the field.