Day 2
Searching the databases for authors is not difficult, but it is sometimes more rewarding to search by topic. (For search by "Topic" see #2 on the opening page.) For now, let me give you some pointers for the author search.
There are three general database search engines history students can use to find authors and topics. They are:
Academic Search Premiere
Expanded Academic ASAP
Wilson Select Plus
These databases can also be searched by topic and by journal (something I'll discuss later), but an author search is fairly easy. Some of the articles will not be full-text and they are of little use to you. If the search database has an option for a full-text search, be sure to click on that option. You don't want abstracts; you want the whole article.
Open up Wilson Select Plus and try Ira Berlin, the author I mentioned earlier who has written on American slavery. It turns out that the Wilson database has three articles by Berlin. Two are book reviews. The reviews could be of value since students would be able to search for additional book titles within each review.
The more rewarding hit is the third article by Berlin. It discusses the difficulty historians have in finding first person testimonies from slaves and ex-slaves. This article might have information a student could use for a term paper, and it also might list additional sources students could use. It is up to individual researchers to decide whether the article is worthy or not for inclusion in a research paper
There are a few more specialized, academic databases one could use to launch author searches, and I'll give those to you in the next topic listing. Click on Author Pt. B.