In many ways, the Internet makes research so much easier, with numberless potential sources right at your fingertips.
But in some ways, this actually makes your task much harder! It can take hours, even days, to comb through the hundreds of sources that you might find on any given topic…and you have no way of knowing how accurate or reliable the information is. To make matters worse, you have to contend with irrelevant results, spam, and advertising cluttering up your search.
Don’t worry, though. You can find reliable sources for your History essay on the Internet.
Here are 11 of them to choose from.
- iSeek. This education-based search engine points you only to the most trusted websites and allows many options to target and refine your search to find the best results. And you can use bookmarks to build your own online library.
- RefSeek. Another search engine just for students, this connects users to thousands of reliable journals and websites without advertising or spam, cutting valuable time from your search by omitting irrelevant results.
- OAIster. This massive database of open-access sources is run by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). It can be accessed through their First Search tool.
- Microsoft Academic Search. This is a semantic search engine which connects you to 120 million academic publications. It also provides graph and map features that could provide you with some history essay help. In this case, you see the ways in which sources are connected.
- CIA World Factbook. Here you can find detailed maps and articles about 267 different countries, including their history, geography, and cultural traditions. It also provides up-to-date news items from around the world.
- History Buff. The site offers a wealth of academic articles on various themes and time periods. Simply type your topic into the search bar to uncover a variety of articles about it.
- Digital History. Here you can find documents, eTextbooks, and multimedia exhibits organized by topic or historical era. It offers an array of primary sources, such as newspaper articles and court cases.
- Google Books. There are times when a book may be your best source. If that’s the case, use this search engine to type in your topic and find relevant books about it. You can even preview the books ahead of time to see if they will meet your needs.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Just type in your topic to be connected to high-quality, open-access, scholarly journal articles. You can browse subjects, journals, or type in a specific search term.
- Google Scholar. Another academic search engine that allows you to build your own library, and also to view how many times an article was cited. You can search for articles, case laws, or both.
With these authentic academic websites and scholarly search engines, you can’t fail to quickly find whatever you need to write your next History essay.