Research and Course Guides: The Year You Were Born: Journals/Journal Articles

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Uploaded to YouTube by minnesotahistory on Jul 29, 2011.

Often students come in to the Library with assignments to do research in primary source materials, but find that they're not quite sure what a primary source is. This video provides a brief discussion of primary and secondary sources.

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Now that you have discovered events that occured the year/date you were born in newspaper articles and reference books, it is time to research those events and popular culture during that time in other sources as well.

Remember not to depend solely on Google or your favorite search engine or Wikipedia for this part. Although there is a good amount of excellent and trustworthy information on some websites, remember that ANYbody can put words on the Web, whether they're true or not.

Databases useful for researching topics related to major world events

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Biography Reference Center This link opens in a new window
Biography Reference Center offers a comprehensive collection of more than 450,000 full text biographies, including the complete full text run of Biography Today and Biography Magazine, as well as thousands of narrative biographies that are not available in other databases.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A growing digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources covering more than 50 disciplines primarily in the Arts & Sciences, Life Sciences and Business. Coverage begins at the first volume and issue of the journal ever published, and extends up to a publication date usually set in the past three to five years.
Nexis Uni (LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information in a variety of formats including newspapers.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Covering more than 160 subjects areas, this database includes a diversified mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.

Historic Documents Series
Published annually since 1972, the Historic Documents Series now contains 39 volumes of primary sources. Each volume includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

Database Search Tips

Use Boolean Logic (AND, OR, NOT) to combine search concepts.

TOO FEW hits: OR to add synonyms; individual key words, NOT whole phrases; drop concept(s) with AND; truncate; consider other databases.

TOO MANY hits: AND another concept into search; use other available limiters in the database.

Truncation symbols (?, *, !, +) will provide variant spelling after the root word.

A wildcard (?, *) is a character that may be used in a search term to represent one or more other characters.

Do an advanced search and take advantage of the fields provided.

Use the subject headings/descriptors to find additional citations on your topic. If that does not work, use the keyword search.

You can also use limits (e.g., publication year, language, words in the title, etc.) to narrow your retrieval.

Set up an auto alert/RSS feed to monitor the research.

The Year You Were Born

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Full Search at MSSU

Explore Topics

Databases useful for researching topics related to major world events

Database Search Tips