Part III - Secondary Source Analysis: Scholarly Articles
1.Reacquainting yourself with your research questions
It is always helpful for researchers to refresh their memories before picking up their research again. Before you begin locating secondary sources, go back into Part II (access using the blue submission link in the upper right corner) and cut and paste your research questions here so that you have them on hand. Also, copy any comments from your instructor or teaching assistant.
2.Reacquainting yourself with your thesis statement
Before you begin locating secondary sources, go back into Part II (access using the blue submission link in the upper right corner) and cut and paste your first revised thesis statement here so that you have it on hand. Also, copy any comments from your instructor or teaching assistant. You'll revise your thesis statement again by the end of Part III.
3.Secondary Sources: Scholarly Journal Articles
All disciplines have any number of journals in which scholars publish "scholarly articles," which are considered secondary sources in the humanities. Often, these scholarly articles are peer-reviewed, meaning other scholars read and evaluate them before they are published. This process of evaluation insures that the journal publishes only top-quality research in the field. More or less all peer-reviewed journals are considered scholarly, but many scholarly publications do not incorporate a peer-review process for article selection. Whether peer-reviewed or not, scholarly (also referred to as academic) journals are often the best first place to go to begin gathering secondary sources on a topic.
In order to uncover the historical origins of your contemporary issue, it will likely be useful to start by using databases that house historical journals.
One such database is JSTOR (see Links to this item), which contains journals from the first publication year up to five years before the current year, and also published primary source materials, some of which date back to the 19th century. Another is Project Muse, which also includes a number of scholarly journals that publish in the fields of literature, American studies, education, and ethnic studies.
Using JSTOR and/or Project Muse, locate ONE scholarly article published in the last 25 years that can help you learn about the historical roots of your contemporary issue. In JSTOR, be sure to narrow to the item type to “Article,” so you do not get book reviews. While reviews can be helpful in finding books (Part IV), you cannot substitute them for full-length scholarly articles for this assignment. In Project Muse, change the search box pull down menu from “Books and Journals” to “Journals.”
Most likely you will find relevant articles in either JSTOR or Project Muse. But if not, you can do a broader search for articles. To do so, go to the "Find Journal Article" tab from the WSU homepage and conduct an advanced Cross Search of multiple databases. If you use Cross Search be sure to select “history” as your subject and do not include Ethnic NewsWatch, Gutenburg, The London Times, or any Oxford publication as they do not contain scholarly journal articles. [see Part III Tutorials]
Using proper Chicago Style (notes/bibliography), cite your scholarly "article in an online journal."
4.Identifying Thesis Statements
One of the best ways to improve your own thesis statement is to read other scholars' thesis statements and to evaluate them for clarity and effectiveness. For the first of your articles, directly quote the thesis statement, keeping in mind that it might be more than one sentence.
5.Integrating primary evidence and secondary sources
Secondary sources are very helpful because they provide historical context for primary sources. For example, you may not quite know what to do with a newspaper editorial written in 1900 extolling the virtues of Asian immigration restriction in Australia. But if you pair that newspaper article with a scholarly article written within the last 25 years or so that discusses the history of global immigration restriction in the early 20th century, it might make more sense.
In other words, historians rely on both primary and secondary sources when they write and interpret the past.
Using your scholarly article and one or more of the historical primary sources you found in Part II, develop one paragraph that discusses one aspect of the historical roots of your contemporary issue. Use your scholarly article for basic historical narrative and background, and integrate at least one example from at least one of your primary sources as your supporting evidence. For examples of how to do this, refer to the primary sources used by the author of your scholarly article (full citations of those primary sources can be found in the footnotes or endnotes). In other words, use your scholarly article as a model of how to integrate primary and secondary sources together to support your main argument.
6.Secondary Sources: Scholarly Journal Articles: Article 2
Return to either JSTOR or Project Muse to locate an additional scholarly article published in the last 25 years written by a different author and published in a different scholarly journal than the first article you selected. Using Chicago Style (notes/bibliography citation), enter the correct citation for your "article in an online journal."[see Part III Tutorials]
7.Identifying Thesis Statements: Article 2
One of the best ways to improve your own thesis statement is to read other scholars' thesis statements and to evaluate them for clarity and
8.Integrating primary evidence and secondary sources: Article 2
Using your second scholarly article and one or more of the historical primary sources you found in Part II, develop one paragraph that discusses one aspect of the historical roots of your contemporary issue. Use your scholarly article for basic historical narrative and background, and integrate at least one example from at least one of your primary sources as your supporting evidence. For examples of how to do this, refer to the primary sources used by the author of your scholarly article (full citations of those primary sources can be found in the footnotes or endnotes). In other words, use your scholarly article as a model of how to integrate primary and secondary sources together to support your main argument.
9.Revising your thesis statement
In light of your two scholarly articles, your integrated analysis of both your primary and secondary sources, and comments from either your instructor or teaching assistant provided in Part II, revise and polish your initial thesis statement.
