The number of sites with primary sources is always growing. Google has search features that allow you to find relevant items.
Below is a search for primary sources on witches and witchcraft.
Key points to remember:
- Use words and phrases that are commonly used for primary sources: correspondence, diaries, documents, letters, narratives, papers, primary sources, sources, and speeches. A librarian can help with generating these search terms.
- Use quotation marks (" ") to search for phrases (exact words in an exact order).
- Combine synonyms or similar terms with parentheses.
- Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to find alternate word endings.
- Exclude words with a hyphen (-). Think of it as subtracting a term from your search. (For example, witch* -Salem)
- Use OR to search for either term (yes, it has to be in caps).
- Use AND to retrieve results with with both words (again, all caps).
- Limit your results to a specific domain: site:.edu (.edu and .org are domains that tend to have many primary sources)
