Historical research or historiography has been “defined variously to mean the writing of history, the study of historical methodology, the analysis of the different schools of interpretation on a particular historical topic, or the history of historical writing.”1
Historical research relies on a wide variety of sources, both primary and secondary, sometimes including unpublished material.
Primary sources are sources that were created during the time period which they reference or are written by someone with firsthand knowledge of the event. They can include things like diaries, letters, films, interviews, and even results from research studies. Primary sources are views into history. Historians integrate primary sources with context from other sources to learn more about historical events.
Secondary sources are sources that analyze primary sources in some way and include things like magazine and journal articles that analyze study results, literature, interviews, etc.
Begin your research on the library homepage or consult more specialized databases like those linked below.
View a list of all history-related library databases here.
References
1Eileen Ka-May Cheng. Historiography: An Introductory Guide. London: Continuum, 2012. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=450949&site=eds-live
This page uses material from the Excelsior Online Writing Lab article Primary Sources, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.
