Reference or background information provides a general overview of a research topic, including important terms and concepts, relevant names of people or places, and dates of specific events.
Finding background information can help you locate keywords for searching databases and identify more specific areas of your topic that you may want to research further.
Below is a list of databases focused on providing reference information related to U.S. History:
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
UT Austin has access to the all bibliographies in all subject areas.
Updated regularly. A comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with sophisticated technology permitting precise search and browse capabilities. Features over 7,500 articles from Oxford's authoritative reference works, approximately 100 primary sources with specially written commentaries, over 1,000 images, over 100 maps, over 200 charts and tables, timelines to guide researchers through the history of African Americans and over 6,000 biographies.
Some of the titles included in this access are:
The entries in DARE include regional pronunciations, variant forms, some etymologies, and regional and social distributions of the words and phrases.
Selected maps show where words were found in the 1,002 communities investigated during the fieldwork.
Some entries include audio recordings of the original DARE field interviews.
For a written or oral word to be included in DARE it must be a regional or folk term. Words from a standard dictionary are not included.
The DARE database can help with research along the lines of the well-cited “Pop vs Soda” debate.
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