I hope this doesn't break the rules, I'm not sure whether my question fits into what's acceptable or not, so I'll take a crack at it and hope?

I've written a lot of papers for history classes that involve being given a question, or several to pick from, and a single source from which to draw the answer. I know how to do those fairly well.

However, I've never had to do a true research essay, whether by doing my own independent research, or using in-class sources. I already have documented academic anxiety (tests, papers, etc.) that is pretty debilitating, and the fact is, I've never been taught how to do a research paper proper.

Could someone possibly provide some pointers on this? Example: For a class, I have nine assigned books, plus two or three weekly articles posted online by the instructor, and the textbook. I have to write a paper topic using one or more of those in-class sources.

Please forgive me if this seems like a no-brainer, but I'm totally lost and this causes me to freeze up and not be able to function. I don't understand how to come up with my own topic, or my own question, to answer. How does one go about this? I mean...how? I pick, say, a book and an article both discussing the same subject. Then...what? I can't figure out how to come up with a topic/question to answer. I can't decide if I'm just stupid or what, but I can't figure out how to do this.

This week, I got to go through the hand-written notes and database of another (now retired) Anglo-Saxon archaeologist, that he made when he was doing his own PhD research in the late 70s.

It was a fascinating and encouraging experience. We both looked at the same kinds of artefacts (weapons excavated from early Anglo-Saxon graves), though mostly from different cemeteries, and the kinds of observations we both made were surprisingly similar. To some extent, I'm sure this similarity is shaped by reading this scholar's work near the beginning of my project; but many of the details he observed and recorded in his notes were never published, and are patterns thag I've started to see myself in the artefacts I've handled, measured, and recorded for my own data set.

Academic research can be really isolating, and it was an incredible moment to sit down with this scholar, talk about this material we both study, read his note cards, and know that we shared experiences in these museums that literally no one else alive has had in the same way.

This is, I think, the part of research that I enjoy the most. Digging into stuff from the past is great, but using that material to connect with people in the present, to be part of a community that shares the same interests and questions, to experience te generosity ofnpeople sharing the work they've done because they care more about advancing the field than hoarding knowledge, and to talk about it all over a few litres of local German beer - that's what I love about this profession / pursuit.

I now have Kellogg's The Russian Roots of Nazism on my to read list, but my actual interest is in anti-communist political activity amongst White Russian emigres in the United States. Any suggestions?

I have been reading Operation Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941-1945.

In research, I am attempting to turn my MA thesis (roughly 270 pages) into a journal article. The title of the thesis is Representations of the Holocaust in Texas World History Textbooks from 1947 to 1990.

For a project of mine I am looking for information on a Madrid cathedral, the Church of San Luis. Literally anything that mentions it would be helpful to me. My research on it concerns the time during the Spanish Civil War, its destruction via mob riot and a hanging that occurred at its location during the Spanish Civil War.