HIS 242 (Medieval History) Research Guide

The Medieval History Research Guide provides students in HIS 242 access to library resources that will be valuable for scholarly research. Use the menu in the left sidebar to find sources. 

Once you have determined the research question you want to explore, map out your keyword search strategy. Pull out keywords from your question to enter in library databases or Google Scholar. Credo Reference, a library reference database, has a great mind map tool that can help develop keywords.

Your textbook is also a great place to find keywords and terms to expand your search. 

Identifying Scholarly or Peer-Reviewed Articles

A scholarly or peer-reviewed article or source usually has a few key features:

• An article was published in a peer-reviewed journal, meaning a group of peers or an editorial board reviewed the article before publication.
• A book was published by a scholarly press (University of Michigan, Harvard, Yale)
• The book or article author is an academic who works at a College or University or has established credentials (PhD, etc.)

Peer review is the process by which scholarly articles are vetted by experts in a discipline, who critique an article’s methodology, findings, and reasoning. Editors of scholarly journals use the peer review process to decide which articles to publish, and the academic world relies on the peer review process to validate scholarly articles.