History
Articles & Databases
Find journal articles, newspaper articles, book reviews etc.
Note: the search above won't find every article, for a more comprehensive search see the information below on databases.
To find relevant and good quality information for your assignments, projects and dissertations, searching databases is the most effective method. Databases contain quality-assessed journal or newspaper articles on particular topics. The Library offers free access to a range of databases though you may need your username and password to use some of them, especially if you are off campus. For help with searching databases effectively see Searching electronic resources.
Databases:
- History: key databases
- History: all databases
Follow the full details of this resource link on the catalogue entry to find out which databases are most relevant to your research area. You may find all you need through the key databases, but the wider selection available through all databases will help when you need a thorough, detailed search.
Research Help
Once you have decided on your research area, there are some resources which will help you find, access and evaluate the relevant information resources.
There is more specialist information for your subject area available through these Moodle courses:
- For new undergraduates and postgraduates: Library Basics for Arts Students
- For upper undergraduate and masters students:
- For masters students: Research Resources & Skills for Historians
- For PhD students: Library research skills for College of Arts PhD students
Citing References
A general introduction to referencing is available.
What is referencing?
Referencing is the acknowledgement of sources you have read and used while writing your own essay, dissertation, article or thesis.
Referencing includes citing the sources you are referring to and quoting directly from throughout your work, and producing a bibliography of the sources you have read as part of your research.
How do I cite references?
History has its own style guide giving guidance on formatting essays, footnotes, and bibliographies. All students should use this guide.
Honours, postgraduate and PhD students should also refer to the Writing with Style guide.
There’s further guidance and practical exercises to help you develop your writing skills (including referencing) in the History Advancing Academic Writing moodle.
History’s style guide is based on the MHRA Style Guide which is widely used across the humanities. However, you should always check your course handbook for the details of the particular style guide which you should follow.
Software for managing your references
There are a number of reference management software programs which help you to record and store references to books or journal articles and many other sources while you are working on a project. You can then use the stored information to generate bibliographies for your essay, thesis or article using a wide range of styles. The University supports EndNote. There are also a number of freely available pieces of reference management software.