History

Scholarly Secondary Sources 

The expectation in most academic History writing is that you call upon scholarly sources in your research. These sources are most commonly books and journal articles.

Example of a scholarly book - Cultivating connections : the making of Chinese prairie Canada

Example of a scholarly article: Chinese Immigration to Western Manitoba Since 1884: Wah Hep, George Chong, the KMT, and the United Church

To determine if a source is scholarly, look for the following characteristics:

• Writing is formal and offers detailed scholarly analysis of primary sources and discussion of historical events/issues 
• Extensive evidence of the author's research through ample references
• Normally written by professional academic historian, e.g., PhD or MA in History or a closely related field; check to see if author's university affiliation is listed 
• Audience is other experts in the field
• Source is lengthy (for articles, at least 10+ pages)
• An abstract (short summary of the article)
• Source has been peer reviewed by other academic experts (Google the journal title if you aren't sure/there is no "peer reviewed" label). 
  • books can also be peer reviewed, but aren't usually labelled in the same way journals are. 
• Scholarly books are published by university presses (e.g., University of Calgary Press) or publishers who specialize in academic publishing (e.g., Routledge, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, Bloomsbury)

Slideshow: Evaluating sources for relevance and scholariness

Find Secondary Sources in Subject Specific Database: 

Still looking for information or overwhelmed by LibrarySearch results? Use one of history-specific journal article databases on the ARTICLES tab of this guide.  

America History and Life: An important resource for American history research. Try the advanced search function, which allows you to search for articles discussing specific historical time periods, or use the side filters to narrow results by date, subject or type of publication.

Find Secondary Sources in a Subject Specific Journal

Try searching within a relevant journal for article on your topic:

• Canadian Historical Review
• Journal of Canadian Studies
• Canadian Journal of History

When searching, use keywords that represent only the important aspects of your topic, and avoid sentence fragments

Good search:
"nuclear anxiety" "cold war" America
Poor search:
the effects of nuclear anxiety on Cold War America

Finding too much?

• Add an additional search term that narrows your topic
• Put “quotation marks around important phrases" to search for exact phrases, e.g., "cold war"

Finding too little?

• Remove a search term
• Put * after the root of a word to look for multiple endings, e.g, environ*
• Use OR between similar terms/ideas to search for EITHER word
  e.g., (nuclear OR atomic) 

For better searching, think of multiple ways to describe your topic and switch terms occasionally e.g. Atomic Age vs. Nuclear Age, World War II vs. Second World War

To find tertiary / background sources 

• Use very simple searches, usually just one or two words works best. e.g. Cold War, nuclear testing
• Pay close attention to the larger work (e.g., the encyclopedia) the source is found in, to make sure what you have found is relevant, e.g., an  entry in an encyclodia of American history will be more relevant than one on the history of another country.

You can find tertiary (also known as background or reference) sources:

• On the Background Sources tab of this guide. Recommended background sources for this course can be found in:
  • The Canadian Encyclopedia
  • Oxford Reference Online
  • CredoReference
• By searching in LibrarySearch and filtering by Resource Type: Reference Entries

Where to Find Primary Sources Relevant to this Course

The following collections are good starting points for finding documents related to this course. For a more exhaustive list of Canadian primary source collections, visit the Primary Sources for Canadian History tab of this research guide. 

• ​Canadiana Online: Includes early government documents/legislation, some early newspapers, religious tracts and special interest group publications of various kinds. Best for topics up to the early 20th century. 
   
• Héritage - Primary sources spanning the 1600s to the 1900s. Includes documents related to Indigenous groups, government, military and war, papers of prominent Canadians, genealogy sources, and landmark papers from Canadian history.
   
• Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters

  Coverage of the various European and colonial frontier regions , inlcuding North America, through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples from 1650-1920. Contains documents from the Glenbow, including the Southern Alberta Research Project, Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Manitoba Archives, and Manitoba Museum

• Historical newspapers: Newspapers are an accessible form of primary source for those new to this type of research. MRU provides access to numerous papers, including some dating back to the mid-19th century (Toronto Star, Globe and Mail) and earlier.
   

• Historical Debates of the Parliament of Canada (Hansard): Includes all verbatim accounts of all debates of the Canadian Senate and the House of Commons from the first session in 1867 to 1994 (House of Commons) and 1996 (Senate). 
   
• Internet Archive: Not specific to Canada, this digital library includes a vast number of digitized primary document relating to Canada. Use the date limiter to ensure primary source results.
   
• Library and Archives Canada Collections: A wide variety of document types, includes official government records e.g., immigrations records, passenger lists, census data etc. Limit search results by DATE and to AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY for best results. 
   
• Peel's Prairie Provinces: Documents the settlement and development of the Canadian West, with a focus on Alberta, and dating back to the earliest days of exploration in the region. A good source of political and special interest related tracts and pamphlets (e.g. social reform and temperance organizations). 
   
• University of Calgary Digital Collections - Includes a Louis Riel Collection, along with useful sources on the history of  Alberta, including early newspapers, legal history and a local history book collection. For best results, limit your search to only the most relevant collections for your topic. 

Other ways to find primary sources

•  On the Primary Sources tab of this guide, browse for relevant primary source collections. Look for the Primary Sources by Geographical Area of Study heading.
• On Google - add the terms primary sources or primary documents to your search query e.g., Canada immigration primary documents
• In LibrarySearch :
  • Add the word sources to your search query, or search for a specific source type e.g., speeches, correspondence, diaries, royal commission. E.g., Pierre Trudeau sources, or Pierre Trudeau speeches
  • Try using the drop down menu to search for your terms only in the subject of the results.
  • Use the creation date filter and specify dates or years relevant to your topic - be careful, though, as collections of primary documents are often published much later than when the original documents were created.
  • Use the resource type filter and do a newspaper search
  • Try modifying this query in LibrarySearch by swapping out the sample search criteria for your own terms.
• In MRU Archives and Special Collections: includes textual records, rare books, photographs and more. 

Primary Source Search Tips

• Read secondary sources carefully for leads: Look for references to key people, organizations, and historical documents related to your topic; examine footnotes carefully. 

• Dates: If the search tool offers the option to limit by date, use it. Be very specific to the time period you are studying, especially with newspapers

• Search terms: Use terminology from the time period and perspective you are studying - e.g., Alberta vs. North-west Territories, Great War vs. World War. Be alert to alternate spellings. 

• Advanced search tools: Try going to the advanced search and searching for your terms in the title of the articles, or look for the option to search in only specific types of documents (e.g., only front page news articles)

• Newspapers are one of the easiest types of primary source to find, and are a good starting point depending on the recency of your topic
   
• Be methodical - identity relevant document collections, and review them systematically to find the best/most relevant - not the first - documents, e.g., look at each issue of a newspaper from the time your event was happening
   
• More tips for finding primary sources