AAST 1003: Introduction to African and African American Studies

Secondary and primary sources to help with your research.

Developing a Search Strategy

Defining and developing your research topic

Try and deconstruct your research question. Make a list of topical concepts by asking the following questions:

  • What do I need to know about this topic?-- Break down your topic by identifying the people, places, events, or the specific time period of your research
  • How current must my information be? Do I need to compare and contrast time periods? --Identify significant dates and time periods for your research. 
  • Do I need an eyewitness account? Do I need facts, statistics or quotes? Or, do I want to analyze public opinion?--Identify where this information would be found.
  • Will different newspapers provide differing viewpoints, perspectives, or characterizations of an event?-Search according to the source.

Developing a search strategy

  • Choose keywords that describe the important concepts of your research topic.
  • Determine whether there are synonyms, related terms, or other variations of keywords that should be included in a search string.
  • Utilize limiters to filter your results.
  • Evaluate results and modify your search query.

Newspapers

African American Newspapers

African and International Newspapers