Welcome to the library research guide for POLS 325: Asian American Politics. In this course, you will be using both primary and secondary sources to conduct research on a wide array of topics, including racial formation, Critical Race Theory, Asian adoption, Japanese American internment, Asian American campaigns, COVID + hate crimes, and much more. This guide is intended to serve as a reference for you as you are studying these topics through various research methods, and it will continue to be updated throughout the semester.
Primary Source: An original record of events, such as a diary, a newspaper article, a public record, or scientific documentation.
Secondary Source: Materials such as books and journal articles that analyze primary sources. Secondary sources usually provide evaluation or interpretation of data or evidence found in original research or documents such as historical manuscripts or memoirs.
Database: A collection of information stored in an electronic format that can be searched by a computer.
Archives: 1. A space which houses historical or public records. 2. The historical or public records themselves, which are generally non-circulating materials such as collections of personal papers, rare books, ephemera, etc.
*All definitions are from the "Multilingual Glossary for Today's Library Users" by the Association of College and Research Libraries-Instruction Section (2018), and are used under a CC-BY-NC license.
