Writing & Research in the Disciplines: History & Anthropology

While History and Anthropology are both Social Sciences and hang a lot of importance on the same values of the Social Sciences, they also have expectations of their own that must be considered when writing for these fields. Here is what readers in these fields are looking for:

• Analysis and inclusion of primary sources. These fields rely really heavily on understanding what was happening at a given time, so materials from the time should be included in writing unless your teacher specifies something different.
  
  
• Situating a topic in the time it happened. In these fields you should always try to imagine and convey the issues of the cultural situation surrounding the event.
  
  
• Multiple disciplines for evidence. In both of these fields you are expected to draw on scholarship from other disciplines to help build a complete sense of an issue.

History  (UNC Chapel Hill)

Both disciplines are reasonably well covered in:

• Academic Search Premier
• ​JSTOR (older academic articles

In Addition:

History sources:  

• America: History & Life 
• Issues & Controversies in American History

Anthropology:

• Anthropological Index Online 

​Many primary sources for history are becoming available on the web in digitized collections on the Web.   

Below are links to selected research guides created here at Walker Library either for a specific discipline or program or for a specific assignment. 

They will give you a little deeper understanding of what instructors might require.

Anthropology
History: United States
History: World
Primary Sources
Tennessee History
United States History: 1877-Present

For more history related guides, go to the Library Research Guides page and click on History.

Use the search box above to locate more books.