Biographical Research

This research guide is specifically intended for students in Professor Scribner's ENG 101 course.  All students should find their topic in one or more of the reference sources listed.  All print sources are available on the first floor of the Birnbaum Library.

• Finding Background Information in Reference Sources
• Finding Circulating Books
• Finding Newspaper, Magazine & Journal Articles
• Internet/Web Resouces
• Citing Your Sources

Finding Background Information in Reference Sources

If you do not have very much information about your person/topic, it is best to start with a general reference source, such as:

American National Biography    Ref CT213.A68 1999 (vols. 1-24)

Dictionary of American Biography    Ref E176.D563 (vols. 1-20 and suppls.)

Encyclopaedia Britannica    Ref Encyclopedia Case; see also Britannica Online.

Once you know generally who a person is, you can find additional information in a more specialized source.  The following are examples of specialized reference sources.  Keep in mind that the Library of Congress Call Number assigned to a book can direct you to other books on similar topics! Examples:  E184-E185: ethnic groups, encyclopedias and handbooks; E174: American History encyclopedias.

African American Encyclopedia    Ref E185.A253 1993 (vols. 1-6 & supplements)

American Decades    Ref E169.12.A419 (vols. 1-10)

American Heritage Encyclopedia of American History    Ref E174.A535 1998

American Reformers    Ref CT215.A67 1985

American Women's History    Ref HQ1115.W4 1994

Biographical Dictionary of Scientists    Ref Q141.B528 1994

Dictionary of Art    Ref N31.D5 1996  (v.1-34)

Dictionary of Scientific Biography    Ref Q141.D5 (vols. 1-18)

Encyclopedia of New York City    Reserve Ref F128.3.E75 1995

Encyclopedia of Women in American History    Ref HQ 1410.E53 2002 (v.1-3)

Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers    Ref HQ1236.R29 2001 (v.1-2) 

Jazz: The Essential Companion    Ref ML102.J3 C32 1988

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians    Ref ML100.N48 2001 (v.1-29) 

Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Art    Ref N6490.O93

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Finding Circulating Books

The Pace Library Catalog lists the books and other materials owned by the Library.  Use the catalog to locate books on your topic.  To find books on a person, conduct a "subject" search using the person's name (last name, first name).  To find books on another kind of topic, try a "keyword" search.

Books that are in the Birnbaum Stacks may be checked out for two weeks and renewed for a second two weeks. You will need a barcode on the back of your Pace University ID in order to borrow books.  Books located in another Pace University Library (Mortola, Graduate Center or Law Library) may be requested (use the "Request" button in the catalog). This process takes 2-3 business days.

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Finding Newspaper, Magazine & Journal Articles

In order to find articles from periodicals (i.e. magazines, newspapers and journals) on a particular topic, you will need to use an index of some sort.  Indexes can be printed (books) or electronic (online databases).  The following are particularly useful for biographical research:

Biography Index    Ref Index Cases Z5301.B5

Printed index that lists biographical articles published in periodicals.  Search each year individually for references to your topic.

A list of the most applicable online databases follows.  To access these or other library databases, go to the Library home page (http://library.pace.edu), click on "Databases" and choose from one of the lists.

Research Library: 

Contains citations, with abstracts, to more than 1,800 general-interest periodicals. Included are over 500 periodicals related to the social sciences, nearly 400 related to the humanities, more than 150 in the general sciences field, and approximately 200 business titles. More than 200 of the journals are available in full text. Covers 1999-present as the default, for 1986-1998 choose the Backfile.

Academic Search Premier:

Full text database of humanities, social sciences, non-technical general sciences and current events. Covers 1965-present.

Lexis-Nexis Universe:

Full text database of news, business, medical and legal resources. Use this database to find stories from newspapers and general magazines. Covers the past 20 years.

America: History and Life:

Indexes and abstracts literature on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.  Since this database is not full text, you will need to check the library catalog for article availability.

Some of citations you find will not have full-text articles attached. You will need to find the actual article in the library, or in full-text format in another database. For further instructions, please see the web page "I have an article citation, now what do I do?".

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Internet/Web Resources

In addition to books and articles, you may want to incorporate resources from the World Wide Web into your research.  You will most likely be able to find Websites related to your topic by using a general Web search engine such as Google (http://www.google.com).  If you do, bear in mind that virtually anyone can publish on the Web, and unlike the books and articles in the Pace Library collection, many resources on the Web have not been evaluated by editors or selected by librarians.

The Pace Library does maintain a directory of Websites that we have looked at and judged to be appropriate for academic research.  To access this directory, visit the Library's Internet Resources by Subject page.  Other, more extensive directories of high-quality Web resources that you may find useful include:

INFOMINE    http://infomine.ucr.edu/

A collection of scholarly Internet resources, arranged by subject.  INFOMINE was developed by the University of California, Riverside.

 Librarians' Index to the Internet    http://lii.org/

Though specifically intended for users of public libraries, this annotated subject directory links to more than 9,000 high-quality Web resources.

The Scout Report Archives    http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/archives/

Search for critical evaluations of Websites that have appeared in previous editions of the Scout Report.

Regardless of the method that you use to locate Web resources, you will need to ask yourself evaluative questions about those resources before you use them in a college-level paper.  Specifically, you should think about whether your sources are:

• Accurate:  Is the resource free of obvious errors?  Does the resource provide appropriate documentation of information presented as factual?

• Authoritative:  Does the author of the resource have credentials or expertise on the subject s/he is writing about?  What are his or her qualifications?  If no author is given, how reputable in the organization providing the resource?

• Objective:  Is the resource biased, and if so, is the bias clearly acknowledged?

• Current:  Is the date of publication given, and if so, is it recent enough to be useful?

• Appropriate in Scope and Coverage:  What are the topics included in the resource?  Are they covered in sufficient depth?

For more information on evaluating Websites, please see the library's page on Evaluating Resources.

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Citing Your Sources

To avoid the appearance of plagiarism, you will need to cite all of your information sources using a MLA format.  For information on MLA citation format, see the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Birnbaum Ref Reserve LB2369 .G53 2003).

Additional information about citing resources is available on the Library's "How to Cite Resources" page.  For more information on plagiarism, see the "Student Resources" on the Library's "Plagiarism Facts for Faculty and Students" page.

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