HIST 194-F1 Responding to Revolutionary Haiti: Art, Literature and Politics: Getting Started

Most authors writing in this discipline follow the Chicago Manual of Style published by the University of Chicago Press, and most frequently, the "notes/bibliography" format. 

See below for more help with citations and practices.

Historical research relies on a wide variety of sources, both primary & secondary, including unpublished material.

Primary Sources
First-hand testimonies from sources who witnessed or experienced an event firsthand.

• Examples include: a letter, newspaper article, a photograph, a diary, or other ephemera from the time period being studied.

• Found in public records & legal documents, minutes of meetings, corporate records, recordings, letters, diaries, journals, drawings.

• Located in university archives, historical societies, and within private institutions or museums. 
   

Secondary or Scholarly Sources
These are the peer reviewed articles and scholarly books that historians write after they have worked with the primary sources and consulted other secondary articles or books.

• Can be oral or written

• Secondhand accounts of events

• Found in textbooks, encyclopedias, journal articles, newspapers, biographies and other media such as films or tape recordings.