Now that you've come up with a topic for your research you have to decide what kinds of material you will need. You will also need to determine in which disciplines the material you need is likely to be published. Most databases specialize in format of material or discipline. So knowing what sorts of information you need tells you what tools to use to find that information.

What type of information will you need? (choose all that apply)
Background sources
Books
Scholarly journal articles
Popular magazine articles
Newspaper articles
Government reports
Statistics
Dissertations
Primary sources

What broad discipline does your topic fall into? (choose all that apply)
Business & economics
History
Political Science & Law
Religion
Sociology
Other:

Is your topic limited to some geographic region?
United States
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Latin America
Asia
Africa
Other:

Is your topic limited to some time period?
Contemporary (1990+)
Twentieth century
Nineteenth century
Early Modern
Renaissance
Medieval
Ancient
Other:

Take a look at this list of these databases and decide which databases would be most useful for your topic in light of the types of material and discipline. Choose 2 databases and a brief rationale for choosing each.

Database 1:
Rationale:

Database 2:
Rationale:

Any questions?