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History 112 - U.S. History Since 1865: Find Articles

Exploring political, social, economic, and intellectual development in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the current period.

What's the difference between scholarly and popular sources?

Your instructor said that you cannot use the Internet to find sources for your paper. Instead, you have to use "scholarly journals" and other academic resources from the library. So what does that mean?

Scholarly journals are published by universities, societies, or associations of specialized fields. Articles are written by scholars in that field who present the results of original research and experimentation or provide technical or professional information. They go through a peer-review evaluation process before being published. Peer-reviewed articles are reviewed by other scholars in the same field who provide feedback about the article's quality, accuracy, relevance to scholarship in the field, validity of research methodology and procedures, and more.

Ready to start searching for scholarly journal articles? You will find them in our EBSCO and JSTOR databases. Connect to those through the Popular Databases link on the library homepage.

Scholarly Journals

Scholarly journal images

  • Focused on a particular field of study
  • Based on original research or experimentation
  • Written by scholars or experts in a particular field
  • Read by professionals, students or educators in the subject area
  • Use scholarly, technical, research-oriented language
  • Include references, bibliographies or footnotes
  • Contain little or no advertising

Popular Magazines

Popular magazine images

  • General interest stories or entertainment information
  • Based on fact-finding and/or opinion
  • Written by staff writers or journalists
  • Read by the general public
  • Easy to understand language
  • Usually do not include references
  • Contain lots of colorful advertising

Databases

Recommended Article Databases for History

JSTOR - A scholarly journal database for the Humanities and Social Sciences

America History and Life with Full Text - Includes literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present.

History Reference Source - Provides full text of leading history periodicals, as well as historical documents, biographies of historical figures, and historical photos and maps.

U.S. History (Gale in Context) - Includes articles and primary source documents on hundreds of the most significant people, events, and topics in U.S. history.