Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to

The intention is that the principles of searching outlined here can be used when you are researching the topic you choose to do for this course. Use the following steps to locate material on the UTL Library Catalogue.

Topic
Decide on your topic or thesis statement: e.g. "In sixteenth century Germany the urban reformation was more successful than its counterpart in the rural area". This should be concise and clear. It may change as you proceed in your research but you must begin with a working thesis statement. This assignment will require you to locate primary and secondary works in print and electronic format. Demonstrated below is a method to locate material:

1.Through the UTL library catalogue (monographs and primary material in print)
2. Through the UTL e-indexes (journal article and essay citations)
3. Locating primary material on the web.

Material can be located in the following categories:
1. Person
2. Place
3. Event

1. Locating Material on or about a Person

e.g.Martin Luther

The simplest search is to type in the person's name as a subject. However, this is likely to produce many results whose value you will have to determine item by item thus making for a time consuming process.

How To: Type in Subject field,

To conduct a more focused search choose appropriate sub-headings to add to the basic one above. These are arranged alphabetically.

How To: Type in Subject field

For locating primary material on this subject you can enter terms such as "Correspondence", "Sermons", "Works", "Table Talk" etc.
Thus:

2. Locating Material by a Person

e.g. Martin Luther
If you want to locate material by a person, choose the Author field and type in the author's name. This search is important when you are locating primary material.

How To: Type in Author field,

3. Locating Specific works by a Person

e.g. Martin Luther

If you want to locate a specific work by a person, choose the Title field and type in the deatils of the title. Choose Exact if you know the exact title. Choose Keyword if you only know a few words and input them in any order.

How To: Type in the title of the work in the Title field. Choose either Exact or Keyword.

In English: Infant baptism
In German: Kleine Katechismus
In Latin: Fides Infantium

When searching for material about Reformation issues in particular countries, regions, or centres. Here are the steps to follow:
1. Choose the country: e.g. Germany
2. Choose the subject that you wish to find information on: e.g. church history
3. Choose the time period you are researching: e.g. 16th century.
4. Choose the type of material you are seeking: e.g. sources

So that you end up with a specific search statement which you input in the Subject field:

Depending on your topic you can then substitute according to the geographical location you are choosing to study. Whatever the place the rule for the search statement is the same:

For an event note the following format and example:

Event: Reformation
Geographic location: Germany
Material or sub-field: Biography

So that you end up with a specific search statement which you input in the Subject field:

Depending on your topic you can then substitute according to the event you are choosing to study. Whatever the event the rule for the search statement is the same:

There are a number of e-indexes and abstracts that you can search in order to locate journal articles, essays, and book reviews on Reformation studies. Some of these will use the structure and headings outlined above (e.g. Iter), others will not (e.g.

The following are accessible through the UTL home page

America History and Life
America: History and Life is a complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic entries, providing an incomparable research tool for students and researchers of US and Canadian history.

Arts and Humanities Citation Index
The Arts & Humanities Citation Index is part of Web of Science a multidisciplinary database, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the arts & humanities, social sciences, and sciences from 1975 to the present. Select the AHCI only for searching (i.e. deselect the two other databases).

ATLA Religion Database
The American Theological Association's ATLA Religion Database covers such topics as Biblical studies, world religions, Church history and religious perspectives on social issues. It contains over one million bibliographic records covering the research literature of religion in 26 languages. It includes article citations from 650 journals, essay citations from 14,000 multi-author works, and book review citations. Covering the indexing period from 1949 to the present, the database is an essential resource for researchers and students in theology as well as in the social sciences, history, and the humanities.

Historical Abstracts
Historical Abstracts is your complete reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life, see above). This database is packed with annotated references to information on topics from the Renaissance to Tiananmen Square-over half a million entries in all.

Iter
Iter, meaning 'a journey' or 'a path' in Latin, is sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University. Iter was created for the advancement of learning in the study and teaching of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700) through the development of electronic resources.

Here are a selection of the main websites that have material on Reformation studies in Europe and America. They will connect you to other resources and options.

Victoria University (University of Toronto) has a Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies hosts a list of web sites useful to researchers working on major topics in the Reformation and Renaissance.

The Wabash Centre has syllabi and teaching resources, bibliographies, e-texts, e-journals, websites, listservs, and links to other e-texts.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library has John Calvin: Commentaries, On the Christian Life, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Of Prayer; Erasmus: In Praise of Folly; John Foxe: Book of Martyrs; St. Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises; Martin Luther: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, Small Catechism, The Large Catechism, Preface to Romans, Table Talk, Select Sermons.

Project Wittenberg is home to works by and about Martin Luther and other Lutherans. Here you will find all manner of texts from short quotations to commentaries, hymns to statements of faith, theological treatises to biographies, and links to other places where words and images from the history of Lutheranism live.

Hanover College has a collection of texts and documents on the Luthern, Reformed, Radical, English and Scottish Reformations.

Reformation Ink has important and hard to find primary source Reformation documents readily accessible, including books and articles from the sixteenth century, but also works from authors who stand in the Reformation tradition. divided into classics, contemporary section, online bookstore, and search function to locate any subject or author on the site.

The following may be helpful to you in this respect:

1. Evaluating Internet Resources
2. Sample Evaluation of a Website

The advantages of having an electronic version of a text available are:
1. Accessibility: at the click of a mouse you have the text; whereas with a book it may be signed out.
2. Copy: because these texts are in the public domain, they can be copied, downloaded or printed.

The disadvantages are:
1. Old editions: because the printed version is out of copyright and in the public domain, they tend to be older versions of the text without the necessary critical apparatus (introduction, referencing, bibliography etc) that students of today have come to expect.

Select Other Guides and Resources

Resources:
Luther's Works on CD-ROM [Ask at the Circulation Counter for Computer File 88]. The 55-volume American edition of Luther's Works all on CD-ROM.

On the Graham Library homepage there are resources and guides that may be helpful to you:

Guides:
See the following Guides on the Graham Library webpage (Click on "Theological Collection"):

#5 Church History: A Short Guide to Reference Tools
#10 Seven Steps to a Great Research Paper
#13 A Short Bibliography for the Study of Church History

Format of Submission

Your submission should be in three parts:

1. Topic Statement : be brief and concise; one sentence is sufficient.( 10 Marks)
2. List of subject headings used for locating books, articles, and websites; just list the headings without narrative commentary or lists of hits/results!(60 Marks)
3. Bibliography: list the items (books, articles, and websites) you have identified according to the Chicago B style (see Kate L. Turabian, A manual for writers of term papers, theses, and dissertations 6th ed. 1996) of which there are multiple copies available including two in the Graham Library, one circulating (Call number LB 2369 .T8 1996 TRIN/WYC), one in reference (LB 2369 .T8 1996 TRIF).(30 Marks)

I will look for a list of precise subject headings (2) directly related to the topic statement (1) and listed accurately and comprehensively in the bibliography (3).