Ask Me
What are Primary Sources?
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.
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 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.
Books at Gorgas Library
- ScoutUse Scout to find books, eBooks, scholarly journal articles, magazine articles, newspapers, and more.
- Libraries CatalogThe classic catalog is best for print books that we have on the shelves here at Gorgas. Can also be used to find government documents
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.
- ScoutUse Scout to find books, eBooks, scholarly journal articles, etc.
Academic Journal Articles
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Images of the full text of many scholarly titles in a range of subject areas, including literature, biological sciences, economics, finance, and statistics. Search the archive or pull up a specific article. Artstor is now available on the JSTOR platform.
- ScoutYou can also find scholarly journal articles on Scout.
- 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.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE provides full-text access scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. The database is a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and other university presses and not-for-profit publishers. Also included are the UPCC collections in Asian and Pacific Studies, and Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction.
- Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present.
- America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides historical and cultural coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from journals published worldwide.
Oxford Reference Online
- Oxford Reference OnlineEither search for your topic or go to subject and browse the history section. Good for background information about your topic.
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