Primary Sources

What are primary sources? How can you search for them fast? How do you analyze them? Learn here.

Current sources of primary sources can be found by the Google search engine if you combine the terms and apply the  Boolean Operator AND                                          

For example,  you could input:

“your subject” AND “primary sources”

example: “American Revolution” AND “primary sources”

or

term AND “primary sources”

 example: cults AND “primary sources”

Many academic journal articles document a new experiment or study that is written for academics such as college professors and other experts in the field. Those articles are considered primary sources.  Databases might label them “academic” or “journal” or “scholarly” and sometimes “peer reviewed” although that can be applied to other edited sourcdes.  Best APS database in which to search for academic journal articles are

• Proquest Student Central
• Gale’s ACADEMIC ONE FILE
• Ebsco Host (if the topic is psychology or education related, and you should apply “ERIC” as the database to search there.
• JSTOR (it’s an archive with historically important research articles, not as current as the two databases above.)

Ask your librarian about how to scan and better understand a journal article.