Research Guides: HY 300: Historian's Craft: Finding Secondary Sources

What is a Secondary Source?

Finding secondary sources is often quite a bit easier than finding primary sources. In essence, a secondary source provides analysis or criticism. It brings together both primary and secondary sources to provide an interpretation of events, people, places, etc.

Examples:

Biographies
Criticism and Interpretations
Dictionaries
Encyclopedias
Index and Abstracts
Journal Articles
Literature Reviews
Scholarly books on subject matter (often referred to as "monographs")
Textbooks

Databases for Article Searching

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Publications covering a wide variety of academic disciplines. Includes peer-reviewed journals. Content from 1940 - present.
America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
History of Canada and the United States. Content from 1870 - present.
ATLA Religion with ATLASerials This link opens in a new window
Covers Biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religious perspectives on social issues. Includes full text of selected journals. Compiled by the American Theological Library Association. Content from 1949 - present.
Black Life in America, 1783 - present This link opens in a new window
Coverage of the African American experience as depicted by news media; includes America’s ongoing conversation on race and historic changes; such as Barack Obama’s election, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Includes scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books; includes The Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, Index to Black Periodicals Full Text, Black Literature Index, and the Chicago Defender historical newspaper from 1912-1975.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
World history from 1450 - present, excluding the U.S. and Canada. Content from 1870 - present.
Humanities Full Text This link opens in a new window
Publications covering the humanities. Includes scholarly journals and specialized magazines. Content from 1980 - present.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Back issues of periodicals in economics, math and science, the humanities, and social sciences.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Full-text of current and archival articles from 600+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually. 1990 - present.
Readers' Guide Full Text Mega This link opens in a new window
Covers the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the U.S and Canada. Content from 1983 - present.
Readers' Guide Retrospective, 1890 - 1982 This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index of the most popular general-interest U.S. periodicals; reflects 20th-century U.S. history. Content from 1890 - 1982.
Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers a wide range of interdisciplinary fields; includes a broad array of social sciences journals. Content from 1983 - present.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Access to the core collection - which consists of Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Science Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, all from 1990 – present.

HY 300: Historian's Craft

Interlibrary Loan

Finding Dissertations and Theses

What is a Secondary Source?

Databases for Article Searching