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Black Studies Research Guide

Welcome! The Black Studies collection contains materials related primarily to African American history, African American literature, Africana studies, the African diaspora, slavery, emancipation, Civil Rights, racism, and colonization. The collection also contains materials on art, music, politics, food, sports, and science. This guide provides a portal to the Library’s collections relevant to Black Studies. Information here will help you to research and explore information concerning people of African descent across the world, with a specific emphasis on Africa, the Americas, and the United States. Because of the wide-ranging nature of Black Studies, other collections in the Library will contain relevant materials.

Migration Series Panel 1 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Lawrence#/media/File:Migration_Series_Panel_1.jpg

Starting Your Research

The first step is to choose a topic. We recommend you consider the following:

  1. What topic are you interested in?
  2. If your topic was set by the instructor, what does your instructor want you to learn by doing the research?

Once the topic is selected, you should:

  1. Do a preliminary search for background information on the topic using a reference source, such as Credo Reference (Credo).
  2. Take note of significant people, places, events, etc. Consider why your topic is important to learn about today.
  3. Narrow your topic. Focus on the aspects that the paper will discuss.
  4. Create initial thesis statement.
  5. Search for scholarly articles (recently published academic research) that support your thesis. You can find them using library databases like Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) or JSTOR Arts & Sciences I-XV (JSTOR). 

Acknowledgment

This guide was created in consultation with Dr. Finley, Associate Professor of English, Dr. Cilli, Lecturer of History, and the Diversity and Dialogue Working Group in 2018.