Secondary Source Research

Research HW: Gathering Material

Three typed pages of notes on key facts and ideas you’ve learned about your topic from reading secondary sources. At this point you should be working from at least three secondary source accounts of your topic, all of which should be published, academic sources, ideally books rather than narrowly focused journal articles.

• Use a separate page for each source. At the top of each page of notes, indicate the source author, title, publisher, year of publication, and place of publication.
• For each source, take note of what that source regards as key players and events.
• Format as bullet points, briefly describing each key point in a separate bullet point.
• End each bullet point with a parenthetical citation (last name of author and page #)

How much is enough?

Looking ahead to the big assignments which fall due over the next three weeks, here’s a list of what you should be collecting:

• Your written report will need at least three scholarly secondary sources—ideally books rather than narrowly focused journal articles—as well as one or more primary source fragments from the past to use as illustrations
• Your presentation will need a wealth of primary source fragments from the past.
• Your annotated bibliography will need a wider range of secondary sources: journal articles as well as broadly focused books. You may also choose to include collections of primary sources in your bibliography.

In Class

• Chicago Style
• Finding (and making sense of) Journal Articles