Film Project—Research Tips

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Katie’s Research Tips

Kate Reeves is TA in Professor Cooper’s section of Smarts. She offers the following tips that might be useful to you in researching your film projects and papers. TP

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I know some of you are having a hard time finding good information about the real events that your movies are based on. Here are some places that you can find good information that will be helpful. You want to be using good, reliable information, not personal blogs or websites.

Google (www.google.com):
If you know nothing about your topic, I’d suggest doing a couple of simple Google searches with the title of the movie or the main character so that you understand the basic background of the historical event. You don’t necessarily need to cite all of this, you can just use it for background so that you understand what happened.

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org):
Do NOT cite Wikipedia in your project. Do NOT quote from it! But, if you know very little about your topic, it is a good starting place. Type in the name of the film, the name of the main character or the topic i.e. “Rwandan Genocide.” At the bottom of the page there will be links to legitimate sources. Use those links. It might help you discover what you want to look for in your research.

Library Databases (http://library.usu.edu/main/inabs/index.php):
USU spends thousands of dollars each year to purchase access to online databases. You should be taking advantage of them. For this project I would recommend the Academic Search Premier, Ebsco Host, or Lexis Nexis (if you want news articles). These will link you to academic journals and news articles. Since all of your topics are historical you should be able to find information about the real events and possibly some information about the movies.

New York Times Historical (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=302&COPT=U01EPTYmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTImREJTPTFBQ0Q@&clientId=1652&cfc=1):
Everything printed in the New York Times from 1851-2005. If you are looking for materials after 2005 you can find it on Lexis Nexis.

Library Catalog (https://129.123.124.103/uPortal/Initialize?uP_reload_layout=true&uP_tparam=props&uP_sparam=activeTab&activeTab=1):
Most of your historical events happened 15-100 years ago. People have written entire books on your subjects. Look on the Library Catalog and see if the USU library has a book that on your topic. You don’t have to read the entire book, but they can be very valuable resources.

I hope this helps you get an idea of where you can get information.
—Katie