5 Finding and Evaluating Sources

When selecting material, ensure to verify the following:

• Publisher: University presses function with a system of peer review that (usually) guarantees that minimum standards of reliability and scholarship are respected.

• Date: You should pay attention to the date of publication. Historical research is cumulative, and since an older book cannot reflect later findings, it is important to have some recent items in your bibliography. However, newer is not always better, and you should not neglect the older classics.

• Frequency of citation: A good way of identifying the “classics” is by paying attention to the authors who are most often mentioned in introductions. If in the course of doing your research, you find that one or two authors are always cited and discussed you can safely conclude that their work is important.

• Book reviews: Most scholarly books are reviewed in academic journals. You can find the references to book reviews either in America: History and Life (Canadian or US history), or in Book Review Index (all fields).

• Abstracts: You should look at online summaries of scholarly articles about your topic. The most useful are America: History and Life (Canadian and US history) and Historical Abstracts (the rest of the world since 1450).

• Table of Contents or Introductions: Before you launch into a careful reading of a book, skim the table of contents and the introduction to make a preliminary evaluation of the quality and the utility of the work.