Once you have your research question, you’ll need information sources to answer it and meet the other information needs of your research project.
Generally, sources fall into these basic categories:
| COMMON TYPES OF SOURCES | DETAILS |
| Web-based | There are many types of online information, including e-journals, home-pages, newsgroups, and more. When you discuss “web-based” resources, be specific about what sort of online information you are referring to. |
| Scholarly journals | Articles are long, use terminology or jargon of the discipline, usually begin with an abstract and include a bibliography (e.g., Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology; Journal of Academic Librarianship; IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques). |
| Popular journals | These are geared towards a more general audience and available on your local newsstand. Articles are short and rarely have bibliographies. (e.g., Maclean’s, Newsweek). |
| Current | Specifically define your boundaries for “current.” Do you mean “current” as in this week, this year, this decade, this century, etc.? Can they refer to older material at all, if it is relevant? |
| Peer reviewed (or refereed) journal articles | Explain the process of having experts in the field examine an article before it is published to ensure that the research described is sound and of high quality. Refer students to the Notes for Authors section of a journal to determine if it follows peer review. |
| Primary sources | These provide firsthand information in the original words of the creator or eyewitness and may include creative works, original documents, reports of original research, or ideas. |
| Secondary sources | These provide information reviews and/or, evaluation, analysis or interpretations of primary sources |
[Modified from: Michelle Miller & Anne Greenhoe, Transition with Purpose: Pathways from English Language to Academic Study (2018). Portland State University Reproduced with additions from: Skidmore College, NY: Common Terms for Paper Topics and Essay Questions: http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/writingbrd/qwords.HTML
Permission from: Professor Michael Steven Marx, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Liberal Studies 1, English Department, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.
This section about categorizing sources will increase your sophistication about them and save you time in the long run because you’ll understand the “big picture”. That big picture will be useful as you plan your own sources for a specific research project, which we’ll help you with in the next section Sources and Information Needs.
You’ll usually have a lot of sources available to meet the information needs of your projects. In today’s complex information landscape, just about anything that contains information can be considered a potential source.
Here are a few examples:
- Books and encyclopedias
- Websites, web pages, and blogs
- Magazine, journal, and newspaper articles
- Research reports and conference papers
- Field notes and diaries
- Photographs, paintings, cartoons, and other art works
- TV and radio programs, podcasts, movies, and videos
- Illuminated manuscripts and artifacts
- Bones, minerals, and fossils
- Preserved tissues and organs
- Architectural plans and maps
- Pamphlets and government documents
- Music scores and recorded performances
- Dance notation and theater set models
With so many sources available, the question usually is not whether sources exist for your project but which ones will best meet your information needs.
Being able to categorize a source helps you understand the kind of information it contains, which is a big clue to (1) whether might meet one or more of your information needs and (2) where to look for it and similar sources.
A source can be categorized by:
- Whether it contains quantitative or qualitative information or both
- Whether the source is objective (factual) or persuasive (opinion) and may be biased
- Whether the source is a scholarly, professional or popular publication
- Whether the material is a primary, secondary or tertiary source
- What format the source is in
As you may already be able to tell, sources can be in more than one category at the same time because the categories are not mutually exclusive.
