HIS 3002: The Historian's Craft

1.  Scholarly books - search the library catalog.  Look for books published by academic presses or professional organizations, or by educated scholars in the field.

2.  Scholarly articles - search OneSearch and limit results to Academic Journals, or search in a subject database.

3.  Authoritative online sources (websites) - use Google Advanced search to limit results to .edu or .gov domains

4.  Primary sources - see the Primary Sources tab of this guide

Following the references and footnotes in a given book or article can help you identify additional sources on a topic.

If you find a reference in a bibliography that interests you, check OneSearch or the library catalog to see if we have it.  If we don't, you can request the title through Interlibrary Loan or UBorrow.

In addition to serving as sources for your own research projects, most doctoral dissertations include exhaustive literature reviews and/or extensive bibliographies, making them incredibly useful for identifying additional sources on a topic.   

• Evaluate and choose high-quality sources for your research paper
• The best sources are scholarly or highly-regarded, well-referenced/cited, and authoritative (written or produced by experts, sponsored by appropriate organizations or agencies, etc.)
• Choose sources that are relevant to your topic
• Use a variety of sources to support your thesis/objective: books, scholarly articles, web sources, dissertations, news articles, popular sources, audio/visual media, etc.
• Use different types of primary sources: speeches, writings, newspapers articles, interviews, etc. (for example: you can't write a good research paper with newspaper articles as your only primary sources)
• A well-researched project will not rely solely on one type of source

     Use the CRAAP test for evaluating websites and other online sources:

• C - currency
• R - relevance
• A - authority
• A - accuracy
• P - purpose