About This Guide
This library research guide has been designed for students in the Spring 2025 sections of Expos Studio 20. We offer it to help you build your confidence locating, selecting, and using source materials for your second essay.
Your secondary source base will likely include some combination of
- articles from "peer reviewed" journals, written by credentialed authorities;
- chapters from book-length studies on your subject or related to it in a meaningful way; or
- collections of research essays, often by various experts and published together in book form.
Primary sources may also figure into the mix of materials you'll need to find.
Primary evidence means different things in different fields of study, but for the purposes of your Studio 20 project, you can probably think of it as the relevant or related non-scholarly information that might have a supporting role to play in the argument you'll make.
Items in this category might include a news article, some statistics, an interview that's published, a comment or quotation from a person with "insider" knowledge on your topic, an official statement/report, an Insta post or Tiktok video (and so on) ,
The sections of this guide identify some of the main routes to secondary (scholarly) sources, along with some strategies for working both effectively and efficiently with library resources.
We also provide you with some tips for unearthing primary sources, particularly for topics that directly relate to Harvard.
If you don't find what you need here, or when questions (large or small) about finding sources arise, reach out to us! Librarians are always ready to work with you: via email, on chat, over Zoom, or in person in Lamont , Cabot, Widener, or the Loeb Music Library.
Enjoy your research adventure!
Sue Gilroy, Librarian for Undergraduate Writing Programs, Lamont Library
