RELS 3352 - Global Hinduism - Hawley - Religious Studies - MRU Library Website at Mount Royal University

Developing your topic

Research proposal assignment

Your research proposal is an important step toward writing your final research essay. Your proposal should:

introduce your expected area of research and topic
identify some kind of research question
show a working bibliography, including both primary and secondary sources

Four steps to choosing your topic and research question

Choose a general topic or area that interests you. (Important!)
Do some preliminary or background research to see how others have discussed that topic.
Ask questions related to your topic. Then ask whether those questions make sense, and if they are worth trying to answer.
Chose one of those questions, refine it, make it clear, focused, and reasonable.

Primary sources

Primary sources usually give us a first-hand account or description of an event witnessed. Primary sources are not just for studying the past; they also help us understand and make meaning from current events.

Common examples of primary sources include: photographs; newspapers; audio recordings (e.g., radio broadcasts); video recordings (e.g., newsreels, films, bystanders); diaries and letters; government or legal records; speeches; autobiographies and memoirs; creative works; and more.

Before you start your search for primary sources check out the following resource.

Guide for primary sources in history.

Examples of Tools to Find Primary Sources on History of Hindu Community in Canada

Canadiana Online
Virtual full-text historical primary source content about Canada, including books, magazines and government documents published from the time of the first European settlers to the first half of the 20th century.

Search tip: You can specify where you would like your search words to appear using field codes
ti:Hindu - finds word in title
tx:Hindu - finds word in scanned full text of document
su:Canada - finds word in subject heading
You can combine search words using AND e.g.
tx:Hindu AND su:Canada
Globe and Mail (1844-2018)
Archive of the Globe and Mail newspaper dating back to the pre-Confederation era.
Calgary Herald (1883-2010)
Cover to cover access of international, national, provincial, and local events from 125 years of the Calgary Herald, the largest and oldest daily newspaper in Alberta. This resource is available freely to all Albertans.

Peel's Prairie Provinces
A collection of text and images documenting the settlement and development of the Canadian West and dating back to the earliest days of exploration in the region. Includes historical newspapers.
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Providers: University of Alberta; Canadian Heritage
University of Calgary Digital Collections (includes Glenbow Collection)
A collection of Albertan historical resources, including provincial and municipal laws and other legal documents, local histories, historical newspapers, image collections, Calgary Stampede documents, Canadian medical heritage, and more.
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Alberta Heritage Digitization Project
Library and Archives Canada
To limit your search to digitized items, select Collection Search and Advanced Search. Documents include military heritage, vital statistics, census records, immigration and citizenship.

Secondary sources

Using these sample searches as a starting place, but adapt them for your topic and research needs:

search for other types of resources, not just articles or books
add words that describe your specific topic in more detail
limit the date range if you want newer (or older) sources
add words that define a geography or population (e.g. Alberta, Canadians), or a particular group (e.g., women, men, children, the elderly)

Original search string	Peer-reviewed articles	Books/ebooks
hindu* AND transnationalism	link	link
hindu* AND (diaspora OR migration)	link	link
hindu* AND (hybridity OR identity)	link	link
hindu* AND multicultural*	link	link
hindu* AND generation*	link	link
hindu* AND adaptat* AND (cultur* OR relig*)	link	link
hindu* AND gender	link	link

Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials
A full-text collection of major religion and theology journals combined with three print indexes published annually by the American Theological Library Association. Coverage is 1949 to date.
SocINDEX with Full Text
SocINDEX offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing sociology sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study.
Access to this resource is funded by Alberta Advanced Education through the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library.
PsycInfo
Contains citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations in psychology and related disciplines.
Education Research Complete (EBSCOhost)
Offers indexes and abstracts and select full text access for journals and books.
Project MUSE Premium Collection
Provides full text of a growing number of scholarly journals in the arts and humanities.
JSTOR Collection
Digital library of academic journals, ebooks and primary sources. Includes content across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Note: Use the JSTOR platform for access to Primary Source collections including 19th Century British Pamphlets, Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa, World Heritage Sites: Africa, and Global Plants and are not available for inclusion in LibrarySearch primary sources search.

Find out more about indexing of these resources: https://support-jstor-org.libproxy.mtroyal.ca/hc/en-us/articles/5322416293399-JSTOR-ProQuest-Ex-Libris-Discovery-Resources

You can also check the Resources by Religion: Hinduism section for specific types of resources..

We tend to trust websites published by universities, research groups, governments, and non-profits, but it's always important to evaluate your sources. You can then power up your Google searches with these search tips:

site:gc.ca = limits your searches to Government of Canada web domain (example)
site:edu = limits your searches to most US universities and colleges (example)
allintitle:hindu diaspora canada = words after allintitle: must appear in the title of the page (example)
allintext:hinduism practice canada = words after allintext: must appear in the page text (example)