1.  Keywords (synonyms, related terms, people, dates)   _______________________________________________________

2.  Preliminary reading --- Note bibliographies at end of articles
  _____    Encyclopedia Britannica   
  _____    CIA Fact Book
  _____    Country Studies/Area Handbooks  

3.  Library Catalog (books, videos) For example - keyword search - Ireland and history
You  may check out items from GMU with a VALIDATED NVCC  photo ID & copy of schedule.
Scan Table of Contents, Index, Bibliography for relevant keywords.
  ____   NVCC - Northern Virginia Community College
  ____   GMU - George Mason University
    ____ World Catalog (First Search) Interlibrary loan available if item not available locally 

4.  Journals (LOOK for bibliographies at the end of articles)
______ Academic Search complete  full text, email, citation format
______ ProQuest  full text, email, citation format 1986 - 
______ Project Muse scholarly journals online, full text, email
______ JSTOR    full text scholarly journals late 1800's until 2004, email
______ NVCC history databases

5.  Newspapers
 ____  ProQuest  -    current & historical national papers
To view articles from 1800's select Databases Selected, Historical Databases, select paper(s)- full text, email

6.  Electronic texts
____  University of Virginia electronic text center, full text of OLD, copyright-free documents

7. Primary Sources
AMDOCS - Documents for the study of American History
American Memory Timeline
Booker T. Washington Papers
Historical Documents Online (requires remote access)
Liberty Fund Online Library
WWII Sources

8.  World Wide Web
______   Northern Virginia Community College - History Links
 ______Search engines (LII , Google, MSN,  Ask) returns a list of Web sites related to topic.  

ALWAYS evaluate web sites -  Ask yourself  - WHO is putting out the information, for WHAT audience is it intended , HOW is the site organized, WHEN was the site last updated?