This guide will assist you in developing your research topic and subsequent paper for HIST 1955: History Capstone, or other projects in the area of American History. It will also provide you with links to helpful sites and people.

According to the Pitt-Greensburg program sheet for history, this discipline "is concerned with the broad range of experiences, events, and decisions which have taken place in the past and which have shaped our current world."

• Develop a topic that asks a question or poses a problem that interests you.
• Select appropriate search terms for your subject. In the field of American history, you may want to be more specific in your search term to yield better results. For example:
  • 9/11
  • Civil Rights
  • Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Salem Witch Trials
  • Yorktown
• Search Pittcat Plus and subject oriented databases.
• Revise your topic. Determine how you will answer your question.
• Evaluate your resources carefully!
• When in doubt, contact your librarian.

These sample worksheets will help you refine your research topic, understand how to evaluate a scholarly journal article and explain what a literature review is.