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WRT 200 (Betz): Secondary Sources

Research Guide for Dr. Betz' Writing 200 class.

Tip

Tip:  Other than the Centennial History (below under books) you are unlikely to find secondary sources that are specifically about WCU or West Chester Borough.  You will need more general research that applies to your topic. 

Examples: 

If your topic is impact of fraternities on WCU campus, try researching fraternities and campus culture broadly

If your topic is the WCU marching band uniforms, you could start with all marching band uniforms, but might even need to expand into the history of college marching bands or all marching bands.

If you are struggling with this, talk to Professor Betz and/or a librarian ASAP!

Finding Books and Book Chapters

Doing research on WCU history?  One book not to miss is The Centennial History of West Chester State College.  It covers 1871 to 1971.
For other books and book chapters, search our library catalog.

Reference Collections -- This is where you will find a Scholarly Reference Work

Reference works, such as encyclopedias and dictionaries, are a great place to start to narrow or focus your topic or area of interest, you will need to use at least one reference work.

Beyond those, try our library search tool.  After you search, go to left hand column and under Source Types, select Reference Entries

Library Search

Finding Articles -- Use this tab to find scholarly journal articles

Our library search tool searches across lots of our databases, which is often useful for topics like these.

When you are ready to search for articles.

1) make sure you are in "everything" not just the "catalog" (pull-down menu by search box)

2) limit to scholarly/peer-reviewed journals on the left.

Library Search

We also have a wide range of specialized databases, including America:  History and Life, our main database for American history.
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