LibGuides: HIST 451, Capstone Research: Secondary sources

Journal Articles

Secondary sources. Journal articles written by historians published in scholarly journals.

America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
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Journal articles and books about the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Limited to 6 simultaneous users.
Scope: U.S. and Canada only
Languages: Abstracts of articles in 40 different languages
This index includes almost 400,000 bibliographic entries from over 2,000 journals published worldwide. Books, media reviews, and dissertations are also covered, and approximately 16,000 entries are added each year. The Get Text button links to online full text when available and offers access to UNLV print collections and document delivery options for books and articles not available online.
Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
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1954-
Journal articles and books about world history from 1450 forward (Does not include the United States and Canada). Limited to 4 simultaneous users.
Historical Abstracts identifies journal articles about the history of the world from 1450 to the present, excluding the United States and Canada (See: America: History and Life). Articles from over 2,000 journals are indexed and annotated, and the database includes over half a million entries in all. A select 3,000 books are also listed.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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You can limit your search to just history journals on the Advanced Search form.
JSTOR digitally archives more than 700 scholarly journals. Subjects include African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, business, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and more.

Secondary sources. Collections of scholarly journals that include history journals along with journals from other academic disciplines.

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
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Searchable articles from academic and professional journals and magazines covering every academic discipline.
Update frequency: Updated daily
This excellent one-stop resource lets you search citations and summaries by keyword and then instantly retrieve the full text of articles from journals online. The Get Text button helps you locate any article without linked full text in alternate online sources or in UNLV's print journal collection.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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An archive of more than 700 important scholarly journals covering business, ecology, education, ethnic studies, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and sociology with content ending 3-5 years ago
JSTOR digitally archives more than 700 scholarly journals. Subjects include African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, business, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and more.
Periodicals Archive Online (PAO) This link opens in a new window
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1802-1995
Journal articles in the humanities and social sciences published between 1802-1995
Update frequency: quarterly
Search international scholarly literature in the humanities and social sciences disciplines from 1802 to 1995. PAO includes pre-1995 issues of over 400 journals, including many journals published in languages other than English.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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1995-
Scholarly journals in the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.
Update frequency: monthly

Magazines, newsletters and other popular sources written for members of a community. Could be primary or secondary sources depending on how you use them.

Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
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1959-
Articles, editorials, and reviews from the ethnic, minority, and native press.
Ethnic NewsWatch is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) and comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Designed to provide the "other side of the story," ENW titles offer additional viewpoints from those proffered by the mainstream press.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
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1974-
Publications on gender issues. International publications as well as reports, pamphlets, papers, and conference proceedings devoted to gender issues.
Update frequency: quarterly
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature Retrospective This link opens in a new window
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1890-1982
Index to articles in popular magazines before 1983.
Citations to articles in U. S. general-interest magazines, providing coverage of events prior to 1983. Covers nonfiction, fiction, poems, short stories, and reviews of books, dance, motion pictures, musicals, operas and operettas, radio and television programs, and theater.

Indexes that list citations for scholarship published on a topic. Use the UNLV Find Text button to find out if the full article is available online or request a PDF delivered to your email via ILLiad.

Article First This link opens in a new window
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Articles in all subject areas from more than 16,000 journals.
Subject coverage in science, technology, medicine, social science, business, the humanities, and popular culture is particularly strong.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index This link opens in a new window
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1975-
A&HCI provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information and cited references found in nearly 1,130 of the world's leading arts & humanities journals.
Update frequency: Updated weekly
Use this tool to identify how often a particular author has been cited in the work of peers or to identify the most influential scholarship on a topic.
Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America. This link opens in a new window
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1500s-
Bibliography on Native American history, life, and culture.
Produced in partnership with the Human Relations Area File (HRAF), this database contains citations to magazine and journal articles, monographs, dissertations, and U.S. and Canadian government documents.

European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750
Citations from the Alden-Landis bibliography which lists documents printed in Europe that make some mention of the discovery and emerging awareness of the Americas.

Index Islamicus This link opens in a new window
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1906-
Indexes work written about the Middle East and other main Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, plus Muslim minorities elsewhere.
Update frequency: annual
Over 3,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level.
ITER Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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Bibliography of the Middle Ages and Renaissance covering scholarship in archaeology, art, history, literature, music, philosophy, religion, and history of science for the years 400-1700.
It provides citations for books, journal material published since 1842 (articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies), and citations for essays in books published since 1993.
PAIS International This link opens in a new window
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1972-
Index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general.
From the Public Affairs Information Service, this database provides access to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. It includes records from journals, books, conference proceedings, research and government reports, and directories.
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature Retrospective This link opens in a new window
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1890-1982
Index to articles in popular magazines before 1983.
Citations to articles in U. S. general-interest magazines, providing coverage of events prior to 1983. Covers nonfiction, fiction, poems, short stories, and reviews of books, dance, motion pictures, musicals, operas and operettas, radio and television programs, and theater.

Reader's Guide, 1904-1922 (online)
Online access to PDFs of print volumes of Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, 1904-1922

General advice and inspiration

The Art of History
Essays from Perspectives on History offering senior historians’ thoughts and advice on researching, writing, and reading history.
Historical Documents: how to read them
Step-by-step advice from the history librarian at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC.

Overviews

Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly topic overviews and annotated bibliographies with expert literature reviews from a wide range of disciplines.
Video tutorial for Oxford Bibliographies

History Compass
Review articles to get an overview of current scholarship on historical topics.

Experimental Searches

Consensus.app
AI search generates research paper summaries
JSTOR Text Analyzer
Drag in a relevant paper to see others with similar keywords

Reference Guides

Planning your research

Advice on planning a research project and finding and using primary and secondary sources.

Research Methods Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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Essays, videos, how-to guides and case studies by historians, archivists and other specialists about working with primary sources.
From guidance on where you can find historical documents to the questions you might want to pose and how best to approach analyzing the content they hold, this platform gathers together practical advice and instruction from experts working around the world.

The Princeton Guide to Historical Research by Zachary Schrag
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ISBN: 9780691215488
Publication Date: 2021
Zachary Schrag begins by explaining how to ask good questions and then guides readers step-by-step through all phases of historical research, from narrowing a topic and locating sources to taking notes, crafting a narrative, and connecting one's work to existing scholarship.
Going to the Sources by Anthony Brundage
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ISBN: 9781119262749
Publication Date: 2017
Helps students at all levels meet the challenge of writing their first (or their first "real") research paper. This shows readers how to identify, find, and evaluate both primary and secondary sources for their own writing assignments.

Literature Reviews

Essays by scholars in the field present overviews of the work that has been published on a topic.

Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly research reviews and historiographical essays published in the Oxford Handbooks series. Use these to get an overview of how historians have approached a topic.
Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly topic overviews and annotated bibliographies with expert literature reviews from a wide range of disciplines.
Video tutorial for Oxford Bibliographies

History Compass
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Review articles to get an overview of current scholarship on historical topics.

Booklists, bibliographies and summaries

These research guides from earlier eras are valuable to students writing historiographies. They are arranged by geographical region; editors list and summarize significant books of the era.

The American Historical Association's guide to historical literature (1995)
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This guide is an annotated bibliography of key sources in different regions and time periods. Sources published after 1992 are not included, but this can help you identify relevant collections or standard works.
AHA guide 1961 edition
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(table of contents cuts off but you can use the page number dropdown to navigate the rest of the book - start with the Frontmatter link and navigate to page xix to pick up where the online table of contents ends. US History begins on page 711.)
A guide to historical literature (1931)
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First selected, cumulative bibliography from American Historical Association
Writings on American History
AHA's annual bibliography listing citations to new research in American history, 1902-1990s.
AHA Directory of History Dissertations
The American Historical Assoc. Directory contains details about dissertations that were completed or are currently in progress at 204 history departments in the United States and Canada.

Book reviews

Book reviews can help you identify important works on a topic and identify contrasting approaches or different schools of thought.

H-Net online reviews
Reviews of books and web projects in history and other humanities disciplines

Book Review Digest Plus This link opens in a new window
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1983-
Index of book reviews. Limited to 4 simultaneous users.
Provides citations and excerpts of reviews of current English-language fiction and nonfiction books for children and adults. An abstract of each book is also provided. To be indexed in Book Review Digest, a book must have been published or distributed in the United States or Canada. A work of nonfiction must have received reviews in two or more of the periodicals on the Book Review Digest selection list. A work of fiction must have received reviews in at least three of the periodicals. Reviews of textbooks, government publications, and technical books in law and the sciences are excluded.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Filter your search to Reviews (and consider selecting History in the Journal Filter to locate reviews by historians) on the Advanced Search page.
JSTOR digitally archives more than 700 scholarly journals. Subjects include African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, business, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, music, philosophy, political science, and more.

HIST 451, Capstone Research: Secondary sources

Journal Articles

General advice and inspiration

Overviews

Experimental Searches

Reference Guides

Locations

Contact