Reading, Writing, and Researching

Patrick Rael's "Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students Links to an external site." contains a great deal of information that will be useful to students as they read, write, and research for this class.

In particular, see the "How to Read a Primary Source Links to an external site." and "How to Read a Secondary Source Links to an external site." to help you formulate your discussion posts and how to think about the sources you research and write about.

Research resources at Virginia Tech:

Plan ahead! Research materials take time to find and access.

Make use of Addison, Virginia Tech’s library catalog. Google, Google Scholar Links to an external site. and Google Books Links to an external site. are great places to start, but they most useful when used in conjunction with the library. When you find an article cited via Google Scholar or another source, turn back to Addison to see if you can access it via Virginia Tech’s resources. In Addison, click the “Journal Title” bar on the left to search for articles in a particular journal.

If Virginia Tech’s library does not own a book or article, you can access it via the library’s Interlibrary Loan system (ILLiad). Given enough time, this amazing system will deliver a scanned PDF of any article or book chapter to your email or deliver a book for you from another library to Newman Library.

Use JSTOR Links to an external site. and Project Muse Links to an external site. to access scholarly articles. Use ProQuest Links to an external site. to access newspaper articles and other materials. These sources require access to the VT network, though JSTOR allows you to log in via your Virginia Tech ID and password.

Caution: Wikipedia and other encyclopedias are often good places to begin learning about a subject. However, they are never acceptable citations for a research project. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias are tertiary sources, containing summaries of primary and secondary sources. Follow those references to the original sources and read those sources. Use them to help you find other sources. Then cite the primary and secondary sources that are useful to you, not Wikipedia or other encyclopedias.