How to choose an essay topic

Explore your topic

Introducing Summon - which makes it possible to search across many of the library's collections simultaneously. Including books, ebooks, journal titles, games, music, videos, government information, maps, and more.

However,  Summon doesn't search everything that the library owns or subscribes to so you will still need to search other resources to find everything that you need. Summon also doesn't let you do sophisticated searches that you may be used to doing in specific databases or the library catalogue.  

When to use Summon

• When starting research on a topic
• If you are not sure which databases to use

For assistance using Summon please contact the Research Help Desk.

Reference Materials: 

Use reference materials to get started on your research. These can be found in the Reference area of the library, main floor behind the Research Help Desk.

• Bibliography of imperial, colonial, and Commonwealth history since 1600
• The Cambridge encyclopedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives
• Conflict between India and Pakistan : an encyclopedia
• A dictionary of modern Indian history, 1707-1947
• Dictionary of the modern politics of South-East Asia
• Digital Dictionaries of South Asia
• The encyclopedia of India
• Encyclopaedia of Indian army
• Encyclopaedia of Hindu civilization, customs and traditions
• Encyclopedia of women in India
• India in English fiction, 1800-1970; an annotated bibliography
• Historical and cultural dictionary of India
• Historical dictionary of India

A primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the period being studied. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event.  Also included are works created later by an eyewitness or a participant in an event, e.g. memoirs/autobiographies.

Finding primary sources in the library collection

   1. Original documents can be found by consulting the Archives and Research Collections (ARC) website.
   2. Reproductions can be found by checking the library catalogue.

Use specific words to locate primary sources in the Library catalogue, such as: correspondence, sources, diaries, letters, personal naratives. KEYWORD search examples:

• [PERSON’S NAME] and s:correspondence
• [KEYWORD] and s:diaries
• [PERSON’S NAME] and s:letters
• [KEYWORD] and s:sources

• Bhagat Singh Internet Archive
• Digital Library of India
• Digital Colonial Documents - India
• Empire Online

Sources span five centuries and encourages the use of primary sources. Unique source material including maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paitings, drawings and rare books.

• Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Contains digiral page images of about 150,000 books and other material published during the 18th Century, Holdings come from the British Library and other libraries, including many from South Asia.

• Eighteenth Century Journals

Electronic collection reproduced from rare journals and newspapers (1685-1815) including South Asian and Indian sources.

• Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports

From 1941- . Search full-text content for India, Paskistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

• Gramaphone Recordings from the Linguistic Survey of India (University of Chicago)

Collected in South Asia between 1913 until 1929. From the Digital South Asia Library.

• House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

This collection comprises the most detailed primary source from the 19th century to the present for Britain, its colonies and the wider world.

• The Indian papers of Colonel Clive and Brigadier-General Carnac, 1752-1774

The papers of two leading actors in the East India Company in mid-18th century Bengal from the National Library of Wales. Chiefly in English, but with an array of original correspondence with local figures in Indo-Persian and occasionally Bengali, Marathi and Tamil, this collection allows researchers to understand the complex political web in the subcontinent as the power of the Mughal Empire began to wane.

• Mutiny at the Margins: the Indian Uprising of 1857
• Punch Magazine Cartoon Archive
• South Asian Literary Recorings Project (Library of Congress)

Launched in April 2000, to record the voices of South Asian authors for the Library of Congress' Archive of Recorded World Literature, the project has captured the readings of prominent South Asian poets, novelists, and playwrights. The authors recorded so far represent more than fifteen of the languages of India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

• South Asian Migration Histories  (British National Archives)
• Women in World History--Primary Sources on South Asia