Citations for my helpful sources!

Research Question: Did the events of Adolf Hitler’s childhood psychology affect his ability to make rational decisions pertaining to the German people during World War II.

These are two of my sources that I have found particularly useful when researching my topic!

T.L. Brink. “ The Case of Hitler: An Alderian Perspective on Psychohistory.” Journal of Individual Psychology 31.1 (1975). Psychology and Behavorial Sciences Collection. Web. 2 Apr. 2013.

Hughes, Matthew and Chris Mann. Inside Hitler’s Germany: Life Under the Third Reich. New York: MJF, 2000. Print. 

Blog Homework 3/14

Today I looked through different databases on Galileo and found one that stood out in particular. I was trying to find a database that dealt more with the psychological side of my research topic rather than the historical side.  There were a few different psychology based databases but the best one for my research topic was the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. When searching on this database I used the key words Adolf Hitler and childhood. The very first article and actually the only article on this database pertaining to my topic that came up was incredibly useful to my research topic, the name of it was “The Case of Adolf Hitler: An Adlerian Perspective on Psychohistory.”  This article is exactly what I have been looking for because it is so specific to my research topic. I have yet to find something that had what I was looking for in one article, I have been putting together bits and pieces from different articles in order to properly address my question.

Social Media

When searching using Reddit.com I did not find anything specific that would help me with my research topic. I found a few pictures of Adolf Hitler at all different ages but that does not really help me specifically with my topic. When I searched on Facebook all I found were pages that people made about Adolf Hitler, most all of them were “fan pages” and had no useful information that I could use. I found that I could click on Web results on Facebook when I searched something but that ultimately gave me the same information I already have.  I did not find stumbleupon.com useful for my research topic either. On the interests page when you first sign up there was no interest for history, and the pages that came up for psychology were mostly games and IQ quizzes, which had nothing to do with my topic whatsoever. I have found that researching my topic on social media websites will most likely not be successful because my topic is mainly a history related topic. I don’t really take part in a lot of social media websites, besides blogging for this class I mainly use Facebook for personal activities. 

Homework: 2/26

I found an article on Facebook that has to do specifically with Carrollton and the area of west Georgia. The article I found is http://times-georgian.com/view/full_story/21813980/article-Gas-prices-could-top--4-next-month?instance=TG_home_story_offset and it discusses the rising gas prices in Carrollton and all over the nation. This article estimates that gas prices could rise above $4 per gallon next month.  It shows that gas prices are up from averages in previous months and also last year. It goes on to describe some of the problems that are causing the gas prices to rise. The author of this article is making an argument and uses statistics of previous years and gas prices and also the prices of oil at different times. This article does not emotionalize this topic because they use facts to back everything up. I think that the author uses Slippery Slope when they say “If the Fed curtails or ends the program earlier than anticipated, that could affect economic growth and reduce demand for oil.”

Pre-search and books!

11.)    I believe that my “pre-search” helped me to narrow down my topic and also helped to reinforce that this was the topic that I wanted to stick with. As of right now I do not believe that I need to narrow my topic any more but that could change as I continue to research my topic. For example, if I find information that would help me to be more specific with a few key words in my topic. My topic at this point is; “Did the events during Adolf Hitler’s childhood have a psychological effect on the decisions he made during the Holocaust and World War II?

22.)     Through my research I found the book “Adolf Hitler; his family, childhood, and youth.” The author of this book is Bradley F. Smith and the call number is DD247.H5S55. This book can be found on the second floor of Ingram Library. 

More on researching my topic!

There are not too many differences on how I research now to the way I used to. I had several classes in high school that really taught me how to decipher a good source from a bad one and also how to properly research books in the library. I think that what is really different about my research process is having access to Galileo and the library webpage. Throughout high school I had access to Galileo but I was never really sure how to properly use it and now I do! I am still slightly confused with finding the keywords to type into the Academic Search. I am still confused because I am not really sure how to find synonyms for the keywords that I picked for my research topic.

Special Collections

I feel as though I could get a lot use out of special collections for my research topic. I know that there would be several newspapers a     nd possibly flyers that I could use for my research. I believe that it is important to use special collections because it allows you to experience for yourself what happened and what those people were feeling.  This semester I am taking two history classes; World history and US history. I know for sure that I could really use special collections to my advantage in those two classes.  Since I am a history major, special collections is going to play a huge part in pretty much any class I take in the future. Special collections are a big part of the research process because it provides you with information that you cannot just get anywhere. It allows you to really get into and go in depth with your research topic.