{"id":18277,"date":"2025-11-12T11:13:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T19:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/?p=18277"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:19:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:19:48","slug":"background-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/background-information\/","title":{"rendered":"Background Information"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Background information provides a general overview of a research topic, including&nbsp;important terms and concepts, relevant names of people or places, and dates of specific events. Finding background information can help you&nbsp;locate&nbsp;keywords for searching databases&nbsp;and identify more specific areas of your topic that you may want to research further<sup data-fn=\"a3a38c25-c172-4800-a5e0-10e8d460e8b2\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#a3a38c25-c172-4800-a5e0-10e8d460e8b2\" id=\"a3a38c25-c172-4800-a5e0-10e8d460e8b2-link\">1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Finding Background Information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We recommend a couple of starting points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This database contains subject specialty encyclopedias that can give you a disciplinary overview of your topic and help you discover keywords that can be valuable in your research<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Main_Page\">Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A great place to start to get a more general overview of your topic.  Most articles also contain References and sources.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to Use a Reference Article:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/libapps\/accounts\/22044\/images\/fertility_control_background_article.PNG\" alt=\"A reference article with arrows pointing out how to 1. Find a quick overview of key issues AND identify the stakeholders this topic concerns. 2 Get ideas of how to narrow and focus your topic. 3. Learn alternate search words or specialized vocab.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/libguides.greenriver.edu\/library-research\/background-info\">Created by Green River College Library<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:143px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-footnotes\"><li id=\"a3a38c25-c172-4800-a5e0-10e8d460e8b2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/guides.lib.utexas.edu\/backgroundinformation\">University of Texas Libraries. CC BY NC 4.0.<\/a> <a href=\"#a3a38c25-c172-4800-a5e0-10e8d460e8b2-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 1\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to use background information and where to find it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"<a href=\\\"https:\/\/guides.lib.utexas.edu\/backgroundinformation\\\">University of Texas Libraries. CC BY NC 4.0.<\/a>\",\"id\":\"a3a38c25-c172-4800-a5e0-10e8d460e8b2\"}]"},"categories":[348],"tags":[229],"class_list":["post-18277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-guides","tag-start"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18277"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20368,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18277\/revisions\/20368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librarywp.whatcom.edu\/guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}