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Wellesley College Research Guides

ENG 342: Love, Sex, and Imagination in English Poetry

Find Primary Sources

Tips for Searching Primary Sources

Searching the text of historic documents can be tricky, since you need to consider vocabulary that was used at the time. Keep track of useful terms, phrases, and variant spellings you find, and use them to search for related material. 

Try using OR to combine several spellings of search words or synonyms, such as: 

     bluestocking  OR  blue-stocking

Also try truncation to get variations in spelling that have the same root:

     adverti* to get advertize OR advertise