Cold War History

Secondary sources are materials created by a person who was not at the event but who analyzed or commented on primary sources at a later time.  Secondary sources include scholarly journals articles, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and class lectures.  Secondary sources usually have bibliographies of primary sources, a formal writing style, and a critical approach.  They provide a framework for your interpretation of primary sources.

For example, let's say you are writing a paper about the Berlin Airlift (1948-1949).

Examples of secondary sources would include:

--a 2007 book discussing the operation.

--a recent journal article analyzing the historical impact.

--a dissertation using several hundred primary sources.

--a lecture by a professor in one of your classes.

--a web site that offers current discussions of the Cold War.

Searching with the term site:edu will limit your Google search to educational web sites:

Vietnam war site:edu

This search finds college or university web sites (web sites that have .edu in their web addresses) about the Vietnam war.

Educational web sites are usually more credible sources than commercial (.com) web sites.