Selecting a Topic
Have a few ideas in mind, and start out with a short exploration of the available material; this will help you decide how to narrow or change your topic based on what you find that is interesting to you
Keep in mind, there won’t always be resources on the exact topic you’re interested in
Prepare to search around the topic to piece together information on the topic
Material may need to be ordered from another library, so may take 2-5 days to arrive - start early!
Prepare to search: to search any resource effectively you have to know what you are looking for - and what it might be called by different people.
Make a list of search terms and keep them in mind when you open a database or library catalog.
(Image: Pixababy, Public Domain https://pixabay.com/en/man-student-college-school-library-213725/)
Remember - the history of something won’t necessarily be called that! Look for the type of medicine, look at older research to see the historical uses of things, look at the introductions of review articles to see if they summarize the history and development of a therapy.
Tips
Writing a history paper is not like writing other papers in health sciences. Your resources may not all refer specifically to your topic; some might be broader, and you can use them to give context.
History papers aren't always written using resources that talk about the history of medicine - you can find old scientific research or textbooks and use them to describe the medicine at the time, then compare the older texts to recent or current studies on your topic. Materials that are contemporary to the historical period you are studying are known as "primary resources" in the field of history.
You may find searching for people is a good way to find out about the history of the medicine; for example rather than searching on the history of x-rays, you could search for Marie Curie - this would lead to many valuable resources too
Books are a great place to start, so check out what’s available in the BU library:
Library Catalog: https://bastyru.bywatersolutions.com/
Look for books on your topic by searching for keywords or broader terms.
Tip: Books on the same topic are shelved together!
Find one book on your topic, and then browse the shelf to see what else is available.
Read the contents pages and index pages to see if your topic is covered - the contents page is sometimes even available in the online catalog, so you can check from home!
Based on what you find, add new search terms to you search terms list.
When searching in a database, start with a broad search - enter only one or two keywords, and then apply filters one by one to see how your results change.
This kind of searching is very exploratory and will require you to skim through the titles to select an article that looks interesting to you.
Once you get a good set of search results:
Proquest is a great database to get started on this kind of research! As it is interdisciplinary, it is likely to have better historical and contextual information about medical developments than the more clinically focused resources.
Come to the library - I'm happy to help you get started with any research project, come to the information desk, or email me to set up an appointment!
I can also help via email if you can't make it to campus.
The NLM has extensive historical collections available in digital formats.
It's a great place to find interesting, unusual, historical resources for your project!
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