Things you can add to your searches to help databases understand you better:
An annotated bibliography is a list of sources with full citations and a short paragraph (the annotation) about each source. The annotation paragraph usually includes a summary of the source's main points and an explanation of how the source relates to a given topic.
If I'm working on a paper on the depiction of education in Little Women, an example of an annotated bibliography entry could be:
Nash, Margaret A. "A Means of Honorable Support: Art and Music in Women's Education in the Mid-Nineteenth Century." History of Education Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 1, 2013, pp. 45-63.
In this article, Nash explains how art and music, common areas of education for women in the 19th century emphasized for their ornamental value, actually gave women the opportunity to earn money outside of the home. In this way, education in these areas became a form of freedom in a society where women were rarely allowed to have professions. In Little Women, Beth is a skilled musician and Amy is a skilled artist. Amy even travels to Europe to hone her artistic ability. Nash's article could be used to provide historic context for why it was socially acceptable for the girls to pursue these passions, but could also serve as evidence for how these passions might symbolize the characters' independence.
An annotated bibliography can be a helpful step in writing a paper because it helps you start to think about how you'll use sources and what your main points might be.
Books will typically have more information on argumentation or the civil rights movement in general. Articles are more likely to analyze the argumentation of a specific source, like a speech, book, etc., or the tactics of specific civil rights leaders.
Access the print book catalog here. We currently have books through the 700s shelved, so anything with a Dewey Decimal number from 100-700 we can find easily.
You aren't limited to using these resources, but these are some of the likely places you will find good sources for your annotated bibliography and paper:
Scholarly titles supporting student and faculty research, and general nonfiction on topics such as school & studying, career development, arts & leisure, and practical life skills.
Over 150,000 fiction, reference, scholarly, and professional books online.
Articles, critical essays, work and topic overviews, full-text works, and biographies covering authors, their works, and literary movements.
The ultimate cross-disciplinary research tool, ProQuest Central brings together 30 of our most highly used databases to create the largest single academic research resource available today.