This guide will help you with the research you will need to do for your final paper. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me, set up an appointment, or drop by my office in the library (215 by the public computers)
For both Sherlock and databases, there are ways you can construct your searches to get more specific results:
Primary - first-hand, first-person accounts or narratives without interpretation, commentary, or translation. Primary sources display original thinking
Examples: Thesis, dissertations, research-based scholarly journal articles, or journal articles that report research for the first time, breaking news, diaries, autobiographical blog entries, eyewitness accounts, including photographs and recorded interviews, music and dance performances, artifacts, such as tools, clothing, or other objects, original documents, like tax returns, marriage licenses, and transcripts of trails, building, correspondence, records of organizations and government agencies
Secondary - sources that give an analysis, restatement, or commentary to a primary source.
Examples: all nonfiction books and magazine articles except autobiographical, an article or website that critiques a novel, play, painting, or piece of music, an article or website that synthesizes expert opinion and several eyewitness accounts for a new understanding of an event, the literature review portion of a journal article
Tertiary - sources that index, organize, or compile other sources. Tertiary sources are not usually meant to be read from cover to cover but to dip in and out for the necessary information. They can be a good place for background information to start your research.
Examples: Dictionaries/encyclopedias, almanacs, fact books, most textbooks, timelines
| Primary Source | Secondary Source | Tertiary Source |
|---|---|---|
| Original, firsthand information | secondhand information | thirdhand information |
| Example: Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? | An essay on the themes and interpretation of the sonnet. | Wikipedia article about Shakespeare or Sonnet 18 |
Scholarly or Popular?
Scholarly or peer-reviewed sources are written by credentialed experts in a given academic field, such as history, geology, or mathematics. For many disciplines, this is the "gold standard" of academic publishing. To determine if something is peer-reviewed, consider:
Popular sources is a very broad category, but popular sources are generally distinguished from scholarly because they are not peer-reviewed. This does not necessarily mean they are untrustworthy or not useful, just that they are of a different sort. In determining if something is a popular source, consider:
Government Sources are materials produced by government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels. These materials can range in various forms, including transcripts, reports, recordings, and microfilm/microfiche.
White papers are persuasive reports that summarize a problem or a finding, propose several solutions, and then advocate for the best solution for the situation.
Reference Sources generally summarize information or a topic. They can also be used to find sources.
Terminology commonly used when discussing sources:
Article - contains specific research findings, if an academic paper, written by a scholar who is considered an expert in their field
Journal - contains multiple research articles grouped along subject lines, edited by experts
Database - indexes journals and articles to make them searchable
Peer Review - a process in which an scholarly article is reviewed by other experts (peers) in your field. These experts provide comments and feedback on the article.
Here are some basic guidelines for ASA style citations. For more technical or specific questions, the ASA Guide has a solution for practically any situation you might encounter.
For in-text citations, ASA uses parenthetical citations in the form of (LastName Year:PageNumber)
Example: By 1911, according to one expert, an Amazon was "any woman rebel-which, to a lot of people, meant any girl who left home and went to college" (Lepore 2015:17).
For the Reference list it will be in alphabetical order based on author name.
Journal article note: many professors don't want the URL at the end even if you found it online, defer to their syllabus/assignment instructions or ask if you are unsure.
Format: Lastname, Firstname and Firstname Lastname. Year of publication. "Title of Article." Name of Publication Volume Number(Issue Number): page numbers of article. Retrieval date (URL/DOI if found online).
Example: Aseltine, Robert H., Jr. and Ronald C. Kessler. 1993. "Marital Disruption and Depression in a Community Sample." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 34(3):237-51.
Books
Format: Lastname, Firstname and Firstname Lastname. Year of publication. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher's Name.
Example: Bursik, Robert J., Jr. and Harold G. Grasmick. 1993. Neighborhoods and Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community Control. New York: Lexington Books.
American Sociological Association Style GuideHere are some basic guidelines for Chicago style citations. Turabian style is a condensed version of Chicago specifically created for students. For citations they are nearly identical but the Turabian manual is more approachable. The Chicago Manual of Style has guidance for nearly any situation or source type you are trying to cite.
For in-text references, there are two ways you can cite materials. The first one, notes-bibliography, or notes, style, is mostly used in humanities, and author-date style, is often used in social sciences and natural and physical sciences.
e.g. By 1911, according to one expert, an Amazon was "any woman rebel-which, to a lot of people, meant any girl who left home and went to college."1
For this style the first time you cite a work you will put a full bibliographic citation for the source in the note, though the formatting is slightly different from that in the bibliography. Afterwards you will only have to put an abbreviated version of the citation:
First note citation: Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. (New York: Vintage Books, 2015), 17.
Subsequent citations: Lepore, Wonder Woman, 28-29.
Bibliographic citation: Lepore, Jill. The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 2015.
By 1911, according to one expert, an Amazon was "any woman rebel-which, to a lot of people, meant any girl who left home and went to college" (Lepore 2015, 17).
For the Bibliography it will be in alphabetical order based on author name for either citation style.
Journal article
Format: Lastname, Firstname. "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article." Title of Journal Volume number, Issue Number (Date of Publication): Page Range. URL/DOI if found online.
Note format: Firstname Lastname, "Title of Article: Subtitle of Article," Title of Journal Volume number, Issue Number (Date of Publication): Page Number, URL/DOI if found online.
Example: Van Deusen, Natalie. "'Doubleday Affaren': The Story of Sigrid Undset's Caterina Av Siena." Scandinavian Studies 87, no. 3 (2015): 383-400. 10.5406/scanstud.87.3.0383.
Books
Format: Lastname, Firstname.Title of Book: Subtitle of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher's Name, Date of Publication.
Note format: Firstname Lastname, Title of Book: Subtitle of Book (Place of Publication: Publisher's Name, Date of Publication), page number(s).
Example: Brooks, Gwendolyn. Maud Martha. Chicago: Third World Press, 1993.
Newspaper Article
Format: Lastname, Firstname. "Article title." Newspaper name, date published. URL.
Note format: Firstname Lastname, "Article title," Newspaper name, date published, URL.
Example: Bernton, Hal. "Nagasaki survivor says Hanford neglects bombing's human costs." Seattle Times, March 11, 2018.
Website note: often there will not be an author, in which case you will just use the title in the note, and list it under the title of the website in the bibliography.
Format: Lastname, Firstname OR Website. "Name of Page." Name of section (if relevant). Last modified Month date, year. URL.
Note format: Firstname Lastname, "Name of Page," Name of section (if relevant), Website, Last modified Month date, year, URL.
Example: Google. "Privacy Policy." Privacy & Terms. Last modified March 25, 2016. http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.
The Chicago Manual of Style by Here are some basic guidelines for MLA style citations. For more technical or specific questions, the MLA Handbook has a solution for practically any situation you might encounter.
For in-text citations, MLA uses parenthetical citations. The key point is the initial identifying information about the source from the full bibliographic citation, such as the title if no author name is apparent, and something that will identify where in the source the citation is coming from, such as a paragraph number if there is no page number. Most often this involves the author name and page number as follows (Author's last name page number).
Example: Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).
If you cite the author earlier in the sentence, you only need to provide the page number.
Example: According to Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (194).
For Works Cited, the list is in alphabetical order based on author name. Please consult the full MLA guide for any other source type you might need to cite.
For any source, MLA citations follow the same format with whatever element is necessary for that work:
Format: Author. Title of Source. Title of Container, Other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location. Title of Container, Other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location.
You may think we copied something twice, but we didn't! For example, if it's a stand-alone book, it is not within a container, but the rest of the first section would be filled in. However, if it was an e-book, the second section would be filled in with information about where the e-book is found. This can be confusing, but look at the examples below and see if you can see how it maps out with the practice template.
Online journal articles example: Goldman, Anne. "Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante." The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010, pp. 69-88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41403188.
Books example: Gikandi, Simon. Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Cambridge UP, 2000. ALCS Humanities E-book, hdl.handle.net/2027/heb/07588.0001.001.
Edited volume example: Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 4, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp. 250-58. Hathitrust Digital Library, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079574368;view=1up;seq=266.
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