On 9 December 2011 14:13, Bod Notbod <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 2:52 AM, Carcharoth <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > So you have to pick the right level and get a source that suits the
> > article you are working on. For an article on a major battle, you
> > would need several books on that battle. For an article on a major
> > general, you would need several biographies of that general. And so
> > on.
>
> I suppose that depends on what you're intending to do.
>
> I intend to improve WWI articles with the resources I can find the
> time to get through in the next 18 months or so and they will fall
> rather short of your recommendations, I'm afraid. It is vanishingly
> unlikely I will purchase three books on a single battle or general
> unless some burning passion is aroused as I go.
>
> More probably I will add sentences and citations, scattered about,
> from the few resources I get hold of.
>
> I'd strongly recommend, for a topic as big as WWI, that you get access to
the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online (access is free with a
UK library card). The point is to use the full text search, which covers
over 50,000 biographies.
I've just tried this: "First World War" is over 4,000 hits. "Ypres" is over
200 (one is Anne Boleyn); "second battle of Ypres" is more like the right
size of search. It led me shortly to [[Mir Dast]] VC; whose article could
easily be improved from the ODNB. (Handy template for refs is {{ODNBweb}}.)
I'm a fan, true, but I think as a starting point for topics the ODNB is
great.
Charles
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