Journal articles are the most current material on a topic for the year in which they were written. Remember a journal article written in 1979 was the most current information on the topic in the year 1979 – it is no longer current in 2012. In the field of History and Historical Research, relevant material can be as much as 20 years old so even if the material is no longer current it can still be relevant. Just remember that if you use older journal material you need to balance it out with relevant material from the last six years otherwise you will be missing out on the whole picture created by the researchers in your topic. Don’t forget that journal articles have bibliographies which can lead you to additional resources that will help you with your research. To use someone else’s bibliography to locate potentially useful citations is not plagiarising. This is how research is conducted.