Credit: Jubal

Once you have a specific topic or idea for your game, this second research article is about how to find the material you need for your specific topic.

Read Wikipedia pages around the specific topic you’re looking at. Wikipedia isn’t always the best reliable source, but it’s free and openly accessible and can often give you an overview of concepts, items, people and ideas to look at.

• Remember, Wikipedia should have citations. If Wikipedia claims something but gives no source, it might not be reliable.
• Check the reference list! It might well point to other articles or papers you can use.

Read articles and papers related to the topic. These come in two kinds:

• Magazine articles and blog posts, which will generally have less information and reliability but will be easier to read and access.
• When looking at blogs, it’s worth checking the author. Are they an academic, or is the blog hosted by an academic institution? Do they have a history background?
• Peer-reviewed papers and books from academic publishers are the gold standards for reliable historical research, but they may be harder reading and harder to access. JSTOR or academic search engines will have some papers available. See also about asking historians below.

Ask historians about the element you’re working on. If you can see that someone has worked on a topic, it’s completely OK to look up their university and email a professional to ask for a copy of a paper or ask a question about a topic. Many will be happy to help!

Watch YouTube videos to better understand the historical or cultural context.

• Be careful with videos just as much as you would with blogs: think about who’s making the video, what credentials they have, and why they’re making it.

Ask our Discord Community - if you’re unsure about where to find information on a topic, or want someone with more experience to tell you if a blogpost or video seems reliable and worth using, our community includes academic professionals and experienced history-focused developers who can help.

Remember to check the general notes on how to do research in the theme research article (link needed). Thanks to previous jammers and the Discord Community for discussions and insights for this article.

Is this wiki incomplete? Please feel free to suggest changes or let us know at historicallyaccurategamejam@gmail.com