HIST 319: Gender and the Family in Chinese History

Primary sources are first-hand accounts, that serve as original evidence documenting a period, event, people, idea or work. 

Primary sources can be printed materials like books or newspapers, manuscript and archival materials like diaries and documents, artifacts, and audio/visual materials. Primary materials can be found in analog, digitized, and born-digital forms. 

Some examples of primary sources include:

• Memoirs, speeches, writings, correspondence
• Papers of a political party, agency, or association
• Official documents such as congressional hearings and reports
• Contemporary magazine and newspaper articles
• Contemporary art, films, literature, and music
• Contemporary artifacts, such as buildings and monuments

Searching Full-text Newspapers

• Think like a journalist. What words would they use?
• Use the vocabulary in use at the time. (e.g., Negroes instead of African American)
• Combine synonyms with OR to increase results. (e.g., conservatives OR right-wing)
• Use the asterisk (*) to get multiple endings of a word. (e.g., integrat* for integrate, integration, integrating, etc.)
• To get words closer together, use proximity operators. (See the database's help page for correct syntax.)
• Limit your search to "abstract" or "citation and abstract" (if available) to get more precise results.

These strategies can be used in the library catalog, Williams WorldCat, and HathiTrust Digital Library.

Search by Title

To search by title, you need to have a known title in mind. Bibliographies can help identify relevant titles. See the Reference Sources portion of the research guide for suggestions, and consult the bibliographies from class readings and the secondary sources you find in your research.

Search by Author

Memoirs, speeches, writings, or correspondence of a person can be found by doing an author search in library catalogs using the name (enter the last name first) of the person.  Author searches can also be used for governments, organizations, and corporations.

• Mao, Zedong 

Search by Subject

Usually, library catalog records have at least one subject heading describing the general topic of the item. Subject headings can be subdivided to indicate further topical breakdown, geographical location, time period, or the form of the composition. Some of the subdivisions that indicate the item is a primary source include:

Sources: collections of contemporary documents and writings

• Women -- China -- History -- Sources 
• Chinese Literature -- History and Criticism -- Sources 

Personal Narratives: first-person accounts, memoirs

• China -- History -- Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, Personal Narratives

​Biography: includes biography and autobiographies

• Women -- China -- Biography

Chinese Literature

• Chinese Literature -- Translations into English

To search using subject headings in the Williams Libraries catalog, use the Browse Search or Advanced Search.

Search by Keywords

Using the Advanced Search, you can combine your topic with the subdivisions mentioned above. Choose to search in the subject field to make the searches more precise. (note: "sources" will also bring up reference sources).

Limit Searches by Date

Primary sources were written around the same time as an event or during a particular historical time period. To find contemporary writings, you can do searches in library catalogs by subject and limit to the years in question. A word of caution: this search strategy will not find materials that were reprinted at a later date.

• China -- Social Life and Customs (search in HathiTrust Digital Library limited to 1880-1889)