Being able to recognize scholarly sources is particularly important - and sometimes challenging - in the discipline of History due to its broad popularlity and the vast amount of publication in the field. 

Your task: Quickly skim the sources listed below. Are they scholarly? Why or why not?

1. Alice Paul: Claiming Power

2. 'How long must we wait?' (open and skim the PDF)

3. Men, Women and the Ballot

4. The Myth of Seneca Falls

Doing some background reading in a secondary source can often help you identify or narrow a research topic, and gather basic details about an  issue (key dates, places, people and events) to inform your understanding and search for more information, including primary sources.

With your neighbour, skim this article about women's suffrage in American history.

• What type of source is it?
• What types of information does it provide that might help you if you planned to write about the history of women's right to vote?
• What can you learn from this source about potential primary sources related to the women's suffrage - 

  • Did the source offer any ideas of individuals or organizations who may have generated primary documents?

  • Did the source name any specific primary documents, or types of primary documents you might look for?

• At what point in your research might this type of source be helpful?

Find Background Information on Your Own Topic

- Oxford Reference: Try a simple (one or two word) search for your topic.
- Or visit the Background Sources tab of this guide.

Use the MRU LibrarySearch tool - the search box on the library homepage - to find information in all formats (including books, journal articles, and films) simultaneously.

Improve your results by:

• using the sidebar options (e.g. limit results to only relevant subjects, or to preferred resource type, e.g., books)
• using the advanced search to search for important search terms in the subject or title fields on the drop-down menus.
• refining results to only peer-reviewed sources (searches only within scholarly journals)
• sign in for enhanced results, to save "pinned" favourites lists and search queries

Still looking for information or overwhelmed by LibrarySearch results? 

America History and Life is a database dedicated to journals related to North American history.

Try the Advanced Search, where you can:

• Limit searches by the historical time period discussed in the articles
• Search for terms in the title, subject or abstract of articles
• Exclude book review results or results in languages you are unable to read

Example Primary Sources 

Personal records (letters, diaries, memoirs etc.): The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony 

Newspapers: Parade Struggles to Victory Despite Disgraceful Scenes (1913)

Organizational records and publications: Constitution of the National Woman Suffrage Association (1892?)

Images & artefacts: Suffrage Hike to Wash'n

Finding Primary Sources

• Finding relevant primary sources requires different approaches and different tools than finding secondary sources. Be prepared - the process can be very time consuming. 

• ***Browse the Primary Sources for US History tab of this research guide for an excellent list of primary source collections.***

• Try some searches in LibrarySearch:

  • ​​add the term sources to your search words, which narrows a search to primary documents. For example: America "cold war" Sources.

  • or try specific terms such as correspondence, diaries, speeches

• Try searching Google. Along with your topic words, include a term that might be used to describe an online primary source collection, such as: "primary sources,"  sources, documents, "primary documents'

• Once inside a primary source collection, search using terms that would have been used in the historical period you are studying. For example: Great War vs. World War I, Negro vs. African American.

• Limit search results to a specific date range when you have the option to do so.

• No idea where to start? Try a historical newspaper or government document collection - they will support most topics. 

MRU Guide to Chicago Style Documentation: The expectation at MRU is that you use this online handout as your guide when using Chicago style.

Annotated Bibliographies: Advice and examples from UCLA's History Department.