Author Archives: Salemwitchtrial

11/14/18

• How did religion influence the persecution of the Salem Witch Trial women?
• Go to worldcat, type in the keyword box “salem witches,” and it is the second book titled “In the Devils snare: the Salem witchcraft crisis of 1692.”
• Norton, Mary Beth. “In the devil’s snare: the Salem witchcraft crisis of 1692.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
• This citation was MLA 7^{th  ed.}
• This scholarly article is related to my research question because it relates how mental illness the girls suffered from was not recognized as a legitimate or real disease, so the people of the town blamed it on witchcraft. I feel comfortable citing it because it is a primary source of the account from a person during that time.
• This article is credible because while it may not be scientific, it gives us an insider point of view of the accounts of the two girls being accused and how people in 1692 viewed that and for what reasons.  It is scholarly.
• Because the salem witch trials were such an early time period in history, it is current because the writing is a primary source from Mary Beth Norton’s point of view of why people may have thought the way they did.
• I don’t believe this article is biased, because she is telling peoples perspectives from 1692 and not everyone thought the same about witches back then. She is not taking elements from todays point of view about witches and criticizing them for believing in witches, just why they may have thought how they do. I believe if a book is biased, you can use it to cast someones opinion about certain things, but it may not be as credible.