History 591T: Trials in History

What is a secondary source?

Secondary sources provide interpretation and analysis of primary sources.

Secondary sources are one step removed from the original event or "horse's mouth."

(Thanks to the University of Reno, Nevada Libraries website; used by permission)

Finding scholarly articles

The Library has hundreds of databases in subject disciplines. A good research strategy would be to match your topic to a specific database. if you were to write about Oscar Wilde's trial, a literary database like MLA International Bibliography would be a good start. If you were exploring the case of Alfred Dreyfus, we have the Index to Jewish Periodicals. Witchcraft or the suffragette trials might prompt you to look in our Gender and Women's Studies databases; if you were examining the Russian 'show trials" of the 1930's, we have a number of political science databases. Consult the Research Databases page, which is organized by subject.

Historical Abstracts Full Text This link opens in a new window
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Journal articles, many in full text, and citations to books and dissertations on world history from 1450, published 1954-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Core scholarly journals from a range of disciplines, dating from the earliest issue of each journal to a few years before present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
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Scholarly journals from all academic disciplines - an excellent starting point for multidisciplinary research projects. 3,200 full-text journals. Coverage from 1975 to present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
Expanded Academic ASAP This link opens in a new window
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Articles from scholarly and general-interest periodicals relating to the humanities, social sciences, and non-technical general sciences, 1980-present.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
LegalTrac This link opens in a new window
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Indexing for more than 1,500 major law reviews, legal newspapers, Bar Association journals and international legal journals, including more than 250 titles in full text.
Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.

Pascal and Francis Bibliographic Databases
Includes citations to humanities journal articles, books, dissertations and other scholarly literature in French and other European languages, 1984-2015.