Before using any source in a paper or research project, you need to understand what your information need is. You may have heard of the event that makes up your research topic before, but you need a good understanding of when it happened, why it happened, and who was involved before starting to research for this paper. Use the links below to start researching what your lyric event is about. Take note of the date and start to think about what types of media existed when this event happened. 

These databases are useful for general information on any subject. Use keywords and think of your topic in broad terms to get started. Narrow your search by limiting the publication date or by adding more keywords. 

First we'll work through using the New York Times Historical database together. 

Next we will look at LIFE Magazine. If your event occured AFTER 1972, you'll need to skip this step. LIFE stopped being published in 1972. 

If your event occured after 1960, you will be able to find news about it in the Philadelphia Daily News Historical Database. 

Everyone should use the AP Newsroom to find news broadcasts on their topic. These are clips that were often shown before movies in theatres. They are short and to the point. 

Let's take a break from researching for a minute ... and take a poll! 

Radio can be trickier to find, but you can look through the Library of Congress to find news radio broadcasts. 

You can also search newspapers by geographic location that your event occured. We found reports in the New York Times, but you may want to investigate the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, etc. depending on where the events took place (and what languages you can read!)

Is your topic related to music? Try searching your dates and people in this database: 

These last links are more places that you can try if you're interested. You do not need to search through them but you might be interested in the results, or to compare with what you found earlier in your research.