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GU-Q: HIST 1602: Middle East Civilization II

Finding Primary Sources in HoyaSearch

The library provides access to millions of scholarly resources through HoyaSearch. This includes many primary sources and collections of primary sources. To locate primary sources follow these important steps:

1. Create a Keyword List

Get to know your topic and create a keyword list, which can include names of important events, documents, people, places, dates, and specialized vocabulary.

For example, if you are conducting research on the Turkish War of Independence, 1918 - 1923, some of the keywords you might add to a list include:

  • Turkish War of Independence
  • War of Liberation
  • Armistice of Mudros
  • Paris Peace Conference
  • Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk)
  • Erzurum Congress
  • The Treaty of Sèvres
  • The Constitution of 1921
  • Treaty of Lausanne (1923)
2. Search HoyaSearch using special search words to finding primary sources

Combine the keywords from this list with special keywords HoyaSearch recognizes for finding primary sources:

  • Sources
  • Documents
  • Personal narratives
  • Correspondence
  • Public Opinion
  • Caricatures and cartoons
  • Archives
3. Review the search results and select items that look promising

The search used in the example below is Turkish Revolution Sources.

Details from the book From empire to republic : the Turkish war of national liberation, 1918-1923 : a documentary study.

Note that the entry for this title from the results list includes our keywords, shows that Sources is listed as the genre - indicating primary sources, and the title uses the phrase documentary reader, which indicates a collection of documents or primary sources.

Primary Sources - Guide Video Version