History

History is a topic with broad interest that extends beyond history scholars. For this reason, you must pay particular attention to the quality and audience of the sources you will use in your research. Look for substantial sources that clearly display indicators of scholarliness:

• Authority: Who is responsible for the information? Written by a history scholar with an advanced academic credential, published by a reputable academic organization.
• Process: What process did the information go through to be published? Scholarly sources are based on substantial original research (look for footnotes and bibliography), and be peer-reviewed.
• Purpose: What is the purpose of the source? Scholarly sources are intended to inform academic experts. Look for specialized academic language, formal writing  and formatting.

Examples: Scholarly Sources

• Scholarly history book - note the university publisher and the mention of bibliographic references.
• Scholarly journal article - note the author affiliation, article length and style, footnotes and title of journal where article appears.

Examples: Non--scholarly sources that are generally not appropriate to cite in academic writing:

• Book review - note the book price, a clue that this is a review and not a scholarly article.
• Magazine article - note the short length and that the author has no academic affiliation or credential listed. 
• Website - note the absence of footnotes and that no individual author is listed.

• Google Scholar can sometimes be helpful in discovering journal articles, particularly on more obscure topics.
• Make sure to adjust the settings in Google Scholar so it recognizes you go to MRU, and will therefore link to the full-text where available via MRU Library. Note that Google Scholar generally won't link to the full text of a book, though occasionally it will link to a excerpt or preview of a book.
• Pay close attention to Google Scholar's "Cited By" references, which lead to a list of sources that have cited a particular source. They can be very helpful in leading to additional, relevant sources on a topic.
  
   

Searching directly within a journal relevant to the topic can sometimes yield good results quickly. Here are a few relevant to this course:

- MRU guide to Chicago style references (2022-23)

- More Chicago citation resources

- Chicago style - slide presentation