LibGuides: MC 281: Immigrants, Minorities & American Pluralism: Secondary Sources

What are secondary sources?

Secondary sources are materials which provide an interpretation, analysis or discussion of information originally presented elsewhere. This is in contrast to primary materials which provide first-hand evidence. What counts as a secondary source depends heavily on the topic you are writing about and the discipline you are working within.

Scholarly articles are a common type of secondary source:

These are written by experts and scholars, and reviewed by other scholars in the same field (peer review)
They are published in journals which usually are focused on one topic (example: American Studies is a journal focused on American culture)
They provide in-depth analysis on a specific topic (often quite narrow!)
They can be used to help you build an argument in a research paper

Article Databases

America History and Life This link opens in a new window
America: History & Life covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada. It has selective indexing for over 1,700 journals from 1955 to present. The database also provides full-text coverage of more than 200 journals and nearly 100 books.
Gender Studies Database This link opens in a new window
GSD covers the full spectrum of gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. The source documents indexed include professional journals, conference papers, books, book chapters, government reports, discussion and working papers, theses & dissertations and other sources.
Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window
Political Science Complete contains full text for over 530 journals, and indexing and abstracts for more than 2,900 journals. The database also features over 340 full-text reference books and monographs, and over 38,000 full-text conference papers
Race Relations Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Race Relations Abstracts covers essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline
Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new window
Social Sciences Full Text provides access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language journals published in the social sciences. This resource provides detailed indexing for over 625 periodicals dating back as far as 1983—nearly 400 of which are peer-reviewed.
Urban Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Urban Studies Abstracts includes bibliographic records related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of relevance to the discipline.

MSU Libraries

Course Guides

MC 281: Immigrants, Minorities & American Pluralism

What are secondary sources?

Article Databases