Many students begin their research by Googling their potential subject. While a general web search can be helpful in finding a topic, it is not a great first step in researching your topic. Imagine running towards a tsunami wave because you are thirsty and would like a drink of water. That is a challenging way to fill up your water bottle! Not to mention that the water is not actually . . . drinkable. Likewise, googling your topic can overwhelm you with information that will not end up being useful or reliable.

Reference works are the research equivalent of filling your glass with cold water from the kitchen sink. They aren’t as thrilling as returning 1.3 million hits on Google, but they get the job done quickly and efficiently. They offer a general introduction to your topic and often list good secondary sources on the subject. Examples of reference works include encyclopedias, libguides, dictionaries, timelines, fact books, digests, textbooks, book reviews, and historical guidebooks.

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Notice a similarity to what we said earlier about the three types of historical sources? Most reference works are tertiary sources. A few highly specialized encyclopedias and guidebooks can be considered secondary sources because the author relies on primary sources for her account. Typically, in those instances, the author’s name is listed. If you are having trouble determining whether an encyclopedia entry is secondary or tertiary, ask your teacher for help.

Hint: While it is not against History Day rules to list a tertiary source in your bibliography, an effective History Day project will be based on primary and secondary sources. Ideally, you will have used tertiary sources to find those primary and secondary sources.

Some of the best secondary sources on your topic will be books. And visiting your school library or local public library is still one of the best ways to find good books on your topic. If you live in a town near a college or university, try to check out those libraries out as well.

• Browse the shelves. Using the library catalog (and the help of the librarian) find the section in the stacks (the library shelves) where your topic is located. Look at the books on either side of that section. You might find other sources important to your topic.
• Check the index. If you are holding a book on American diplomacy in the 20th century and your topic is the United States’ involvement in Grenada in the 1980s, flip to the end of the book. Is Grenada listed in the index? If it is, how many pages does the author devote to the topic? More pages = more information. If your topic is not listed, put the book back. It is not going to help you.
• If you find a book that provides helpful information on your topic, use that book’s citations to find other secondary sources as well as primary sources! For an explanation of how to do this, check out the U of A Library’s How to Read a Citation (3 min) video.

Explore Secondary Sources

What if your local library does not have books on your topic? Or they have some, but you want to find more? You can ask your librarian if they offer Interlibrary Loan (ILL) or Mobius. These are services that allow you to borrow a specific book from another library. The process can take several weeks, so try to make your Interlibrary Loan request as early as possible.

You have a second option: digitized books! Over the past five years, libraries and publishers have put an unbelievable number of books online.

Make sure to build your bibliography as you go! You will thank yourself later!!! Create a document and title it BIBLIOGRAPHY. When you find a source you want to use in your National History Day project, create your citation and add it to your bibliography. Alphabetize your sources as you go.

Primary sources are our evidence, the raw data of history. These are materials created by eyewitnesses or first-hand participants in a historical event. Letters, speeches, journal entries, political cartoons, artifacts, photographs, personal documents such as wills and deeds, oral history interviews, government records are among the many kinds of primary sources that you and other historians can explore.

Primary Source Repositories

No, an interview with an expert (a professor of Civil War history, for example) is not a primary source, UNLESS that expert actually lived through and has first-hand knowledge of the events being described.

No, quotes from historical figures which are found in secondary sources are not considered primary sources. The author of the book has processed the quotation, selecting it from the original source. Without seeing the original source for yourself, you don’t know if the quotation is taken out of context, what else was in the source, what the context was, etc.

You should handle individual primary sources differently in footnotes or endnotes than in the bibliography. When you are citing sources in footnotes or endnotes, cite the individual document or photograph. In the bibliography, you would cite only the collection as a whole, not all the individual items.

Do the same citation for newspaper articles. In the footnotes or endnotes, cite the individual articles and issues of a newspaper. In the bibliography, list only the newspaper itself. Use the annotation to explain that you used X number of days of the newspaper for your research.