Physics Databases

Library Search (Articles+Books+More) on the homepage includes the UW Libraries' catalogs and articles from many databases. It's where I recommend you start your search. Additional databases to try:

Search Library Search for the names and locations of your civilization/culture. You may need to try alternate spellings, and you may find sources that only mention your group in a single chapter or for a few pages. With books, look at the Table of Contents and the Index.

Library catalogs and some databases use subject terms to bring together all the works on a particular topic, regardless of the words or phrases authors use. (This also accounts for alternate spellings of names!) Unlike keywords, subject terms are not always intuitive. This is a list of selected subject terms related to astronomy of Indigenous cultures, archaeoastronomy, and other topics you'll be covering in your presentations. Try using them alone or in combination with each other or other keywords when you use Library Search.

• Archaeoastronomy
• Astronomy, Ancient
• Astronomy -- Folklore
• Astronomy History
• Astronomy -- Calendars
• Calendar
• Folklore
• Indian astronomy
• Indians of North America
• Indians of South America
• Mythology
• Stars -- Mythology
• Sun

These call-number ranges might be useful, but additional relevant materials might be in other locations. The Library of Congress has a detailed guide showing a breakdown of call numbers. For books in the Stacks of the Parkside library, call numbers that start with A–G are on L1, H–N are on L2, and P–Z are on L3.

BL = Religions and Mythology
BL 74–99 =  Religions of the World
BL 224–227 = Creation. Theory of the Earth
BL 300–325 = Comparative Mythology

E 51–99 = Pre-Columbian America and Indians of North America

GN = Anthropology
GN 301–674 = Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology

GR = Folklore

QB = Astronomy

It's also important to cite the sources and images on your slides. Treat paraphrases and quotes as you would if you were writing a research paper:

• Use in-text citations on each slide as necessary
• Create one (or more) Reference slides at the end of your presentation, just like a Reference list at the end of your paper.

This slideshow from Bennett College has examples and explanations for APA style, but you can adapt this for your class.

Remember: the main goal of citations is for others to follow your sources, so be sure to provide enough information for others to track them down.