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Welcome! This course guide should provide some resources that will help you complete your research assignments for HY 101.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me or schedule an in-person or virtual appointment (the appointment scheduler is located under my picture, right below the "email me" button).
What are Primary Sources?
An image from the "Domesday Book," a survey of English land and landholdings commissioned by William I in 1086
Primary Sources are original sources: they were created by someone who participated in or observed an event. They include diaries, letters, newspapers, government documents, photographs, and other manuscripts.
Resources for finding and accessing primary sources are below:
Primary Source Databases/Websites
- Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window
The Loeb Classical Library, from Harvard University Press, presents the corpus of Greek and Latin literature with parallel-page English translations. This digital edition of interconnected, fully searchable texts includes many volumes from the series.
- Internet Ancient History SourcebookAn easy to use site that contains a large collection of primary sources.
- Internet Medieval History SourcebookAn easy to use site that contains a large collection of primary sources.
Primary Sources: Books
Books written during (or shortly after) the time period can often be great examples of primary sources, especially when it comes to ancient history.
Because these books are so old, they are often freely available on the internet.
- Internet Classics ArchiveIncludes 441 works of classical literature - mainly Greco-Roman.
- Project GutenbergA large collection of freely available eBooks
- HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
HathiTrust is a partnership of research institutions committed to digital preservation of the cultural record. The Digital Library provides access to public domain and some in-copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives. Materials are available to the extent permitted by copyright law.
Primary Sources on Google
Google is becoming a really great place to find primary sources. The key to finding them is how you construct your search.
You'll always want to add a keyword to the end of your search that will help you find primary sources specifically. Examples of those terms are: "primary sources," documents, archives, correspondence, images, texts, writings, works, etc.
A few example searches:
The battle of thermopylae "primary sources"
The Trojan War documents
You can also add site:.edu to the end of any search in order to make sure you only bring back .edu sites. That can help with weeding out potentially unreliable sites.
The battle of thermopylae documents site:.edu
What are Secondary Sources?
Secondary Sources are secondhand sources. They were created by historians who drew their information from primary sources. The most typical types of secondary sources are books and academic journal articles.
Resources for finding and accessing secondary sources are below:
Secondary Sources
- ScoutScout is our general academic search engine. Scout is the easiest option for finding our books, eBooks, scholarly journal articles, and more.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowGood for scholarly journal articles, eBooks, eBook chapters, etc.
- Oxford Reference This link opens in a new windowThe Oxford Reference Online Premium collection contains reference books covering a wide variety of topics; dictionaries of architecture, plants, geography, literature, mathematics, mythology, and many others. Includes the popular “Oxford Companion” series.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a freely available scholarly search engine that allows you to search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles – from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
Citation Help
The Following can help you format and manage your citations in Chicago Style:
Many databases have a "Cite This" button, but always double check your citation list against the appropriate style manual. Using computer tools can save a lot of time, but there can be small errors.
Citation Tools
- RefWorks TutorialsA link to ProQuest RefWorks' official tutorials page
- Zotero TutorialsA link to Zotero's official tutorial page