User:Generalissima/Thoughts

What to write about
I primarily edit about history and archaeology topics, so I'll be discussing things from that perspective.

There's been many times where instead of setting out to research an obscure figure, I've found a source which talks about them, and then worked my way out from there. If you want to find something to write about, scrolling through back issues of a history journal can be really helpful.

Sourcing
Wikipedia serves as one of the most effective ways to release valuable information from the confines of dusty, often inaccessible old books and journals and newspapers and into a format that anyone around the world can access for free.

For very important historical people, trends, and events, the job here is often paring down the available academic sources to form a set of the most useful and most comprehensive; you're not going to use every academically-published book on the subject of the Roman Empire, for instance.

For more nitty-gritty stuff like local histories or lesser-known figures, you really got to dig. I have developed a system for how to find sources, and it's let me make quite a number of comprehensive bibliographies for articles that I might never get around to actually writing, lol.

The system
JSTOR is probably the best starting point. You get a certain amount of article views per month for free. Additionally, if you are a college student or qualify for the WP:The Wikipedia Library, you get unlimited access. JSTOR compiles academic journals and publications (including many books!).

Another good stopping place is Google Scholar; just put some keywords down for what you're researching "in quotes like this", and it'll return a lot of mentions in scholary sources (though not always, I've found plenty of dubious or unciteable stuff like bachelors' theses in here - always doublecheck source reliability guidelines.)