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Welcome! This guide will help you find sources for your work in HIS 507. If you need more assistance, please contact me via the Need More Help? tab, or stop by the Info & Research Help Desk.
Citing Sources in History
Below are some resources to help you with writing and citing. You may also want to try RefWorks, a web-based citation management tool provided by the Library, or Zotero, a free citation manager that allows you to share and collaborate.
- RefWorks This link opens in a new window
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- What does RefWorks do? RefWorks is a web-based citation manager. Import citations from databases to create your own personal collection. Automatically format your papers and bibliographies in any of almost 150 formats (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, CBE, etc.).
A Pocket Guide to Writing in History (10th edition) by Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 9781319282257Publication Date: 2020Rampolla's guide includes information on typical assignments in history courses, evaluating sources, taking good notes, citation formats, and avoiding plagiarism.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition by Call Number: Available onlineISBN: 9780226287058Publication Date: 2017Provides information on manuscript preparation, punctuation, spelling, quotations, captions, tables, abbreviations, references, bibliographies, notes, and indexes, with sections on journals and electronic media.
Secondary Sources
- URI Libraries SearchLocate books, videos, online resources and more available through the URI Libraries.
- America: History and Life with Full Text (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Citations to and the full text of hundreds of full-text history journals about the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes features such as the ability to search by time period.
- What dates are covered? 1955 to the present
- Historical Abstracts (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Indexing and abstracts of journal articles and other materials on the history of countries other than the United States and Canada. Updated monthly.
- What dates are covered? 1450 - Present
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Archival journal collections in many disciplines, scholarly e-books, images, and primary source materials from institutions worldwide.
- What else should I know? Many journals in JSTOR have an embargo (called the "Moving Wall") on their most recent articles, generally ranging from 3-5 years. Other databases will provide more current results.
Newspaper, Magazine Articles, and Other Primary Source Collections
To find newspaper articles, think about the time frame you're researching, and perhaps the geographic location. For example: 1940s New York, or London during World War I. Larger newspapers are more likely to have indexes. For smaller papers, check libraries in the geographic area, as many will have local history resources.
Sometimes, you can just browse newspapers around particular dates or events. If you're searching for a topic in a newspaper, you'll need to use an appropriate newspaper index to find citations to relevant articles. Below are a few examples.
- African American Newspapers Series 1 and 2, 1827-1998 (America's Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? More than 350 U.S. newspapers covering a century and a half of the African American experience. Includes historically significant papers from more than 35 states and features many rare 19th-century titles.
What dates are covered? 1827-1998
- American History, 1493-1945 (AM) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Letters, diaries, maps, pamphlets, printed books, newspapers & ephemera on the political, economic and social history of the United States up until the 20th Century. Mostly manuscripts, but includes a wide range of document types. Primarily covers revolutionary, early national, antebellum and civil war eras.
- What dates are covered? 1493-1945
- Gale Primary Sources (Gale) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Gale Primary Sources, an academic research environment, integrates primary source collections onto a single research platform that helps researchers search across a wide array of materials and points in time, and uncover new ways to analyze and contextualize information.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Boston Globe (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Page image and full-text index to The Boston Globe. Additional year of content added annually.
- What dates are covered? 1872 - 1990.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Page image and full-text index to The New York Times. Additional year of content added annually.
- What dates are covered? 1851 - 2018.
- Providence Journal (Newsbank) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Articles from the Providence Journal. Searchable page images available for 1829-1982 and 2017 to present. Full text available from 1981 to present.
- What dates are covered? 1829 - Present.
- Readers’ Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
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- What’s included? Access almost 100 years of cultural history with citations to over 3 million articles that appeared in 373 leading U.S. magazines.
- What dates are covered? 1890 - Present.
General Web Resources
- Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
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The DPLA serves as a portal to the openly available, digitized contents of America’s libraries, archives, and museums. It indexes materials in all formats. - Library of Congress Digital Collections
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Multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures and text from the Library of Congress. - Prelinger Archive
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Online archive "of over 60,000 'ephemeral' (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films."
