LibGuides: National History Day Boot Camp, Grades 6-12: Locating secondary sources

What is a secondary source?

SECONDARY SOURCE: A source by an author who was not an eyewitness or a participant in the historical event or period. Secondary sources are interpretations of primary sources, research, and study. Secondary sources provide context for a historical event. For example, high school history textbooks and history books about a particular topic are secondary sources; so are biographies and reference sources such as encyclopedias. This definition also applies to descriptive articles or information found on the Internet.

Pro Tip from NHD:

Books first, Internet second
The Internet should never be the first place a researcher looks for sources of information. Begin with books and articles.

Finding Secondary Sources

Goodreads List
A Goodreads list of prominent books concerning the subject of diplomatic history.
Google Scholar Search
A Google Scholar search for articles on the subject of diplomatic history.
Another Google Scholar search
A Google Scholar Search on the subject of Debate
Once there, look at the search box and add to what is already there:
AND "the name of your historical person"
Internet Modern History Sourcebook Editor: Paul Halsall
more...less...
The texts on these pages come from many sources:

Files posted to various places on the net. In some cases, the source URL no longer exists.
Shorter texts created for class purposes by extracting from much larger texts. In some cases, the extracts have been suggested by a variety of commercial sourcebooks.
Texts scanned in from printed material. In some cases the printed book may be recent, but the material scanned is out of copyright.
Texts sent to me for inclusion.
Links to other online texts. In almost all these cases I have made local copies, so please inform me if links no longer work.
Efforts have been made to confirm to US Copyright Law. Any infringement is unintentional, and any file which infringes copyright, and about which the copyright claimant informs me, will be removed pending resolution.