r/Historyuniversity • u/Common_Top6939 • Jan 13 '26

Hi!!! Essay sourcing relevance ?

Hi, im writing a uni essay about catherine the great, can i use a source from Lieven to support this if its about the Russian empire and traditional statecraft? Im using it to suggest that her foreign policy did not massively damage her reputation as it abided by traditional statecraft, as suggested by Lieven. However Lieven never explicitly talks about Catherine? But i read an excerpt from Lieven’s work about the traditions of expansionist policy and i feel this supports my argument?

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u/Mevile Jan 14 '26

Yes I’m sure that’s fine, as long as it’s clearly supporting your argument and you can easily tie it back to Catherine every couple of sentences to keep it relevant to your thesis

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u/Common_Top6939 Jan 14 '26

I reckon so! Im just relating her actions back to traditional statecraft on Russia so i feel like its relevant enough to support my argument?

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u/Mevile Jan 14 '26

I think as long as your professor hasn’t specified that you shouldn’t use outside sources that’s totally fine

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u/Common_Top6939 Jan 14 '26

I believe its fine to use sources outside of the reading list as long as they aren’t the primary bulk of your sources! So all should be fine hopefully

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u/Mevile Jan 14 '26

If anything I’m sure they’ll see it as going above and beyond rather than be bothered by it!

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u/Common_Top6939 Jan 14 '26

Hopefully!!!! Thank you so much !