On 9 December 2011 14:13, Bod Notbod <bodnotbod(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 2:52 AM, Carcharoth
<carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com>
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