What types of sources will I use? You'll usually be required to use a variety of different types of sources for your research.
Your prompt may specify that you are to use other specific types of sources, including:
The rest of this guide will help demystify these sources, and give you some hints and tips for judging whether the ones you've found in your research are appropriate for your work, and why!
Why should I evaluate these sources? As you perform research for your assignments, you will encounter all of these types of resources. However, not everything you find on your topic will be suitable for your research, or meet the criteria given by your instructors for use in writing college-level papers.
How do you make sense of what is out there and evaluate its authority and appropriateness for your research?
Using the wrong source, or a source that's not appropriate for your level of research, can cause a multitude of problems. If you use an encyclopedia as a sole source for a college-level paper, you will likely do poorly, and if you do not use a scholarly source when one is specifically required, you will not fulfill the assignment criteria - again, another reason to lose points. But bad grades are not the only adverse consequence of not evaluating the sources you plan to use. Outdated information, sources with biases and sources without backup from research or other primary or secondary information and data can result in your paper being one-sided, your arguments being indefensible, or the facts you quote plain WRONG.
Check your sources for these potential problem areas, and ask for help if the sources you've found turn out to have issues:
Scholarly Journal
A scholarly journal is generally published by and for experts. In order to be published in a scholarly journal, an article must first go through the "peer review" process, in which a group of widely acknowledged experts in a field reviews it for content, scholarly soundness and academic value. In most cases, articles in scholarly journals present new, previously un-published research. Scholarly sources will almost always include:
As a general rule, scholarly journals are printed on plain (rather than glossy) paper, do not contain advertisements for popular consumer items and do not have colorful graphics and illustrations, unless such illustrations and graphics are part of the research done for the article.
Search for scholarly journal articles by using our search tool Scout, which can be found on the front page of the USMA Library website. Scout searches the books on our shelves, ebooks, and many of our databases - so it can find you a wide variety of sources. When using Scout, you can limit your results to "Scholarly/Peer Reviewed" items, or to "Academic Journals," by selecting the appropriate checkboxes in the left margin of the page.
Scholarly Books
Scholarly Books are written by authorities in their fields, and are generally published by University Press publishers (publishers affiliated with a college or university, such as Oxford Press or Princeton University Press), where they are subject to peer review, just like a scholarly journal article.
How to know if the book you have chosen for your research is scholarly:
Search for scholarly books by using Scout , and limiting your search results to "Books." It's especially efficient to use the catalog when you have the name of a specific book, or an author whose work you want to find.
Popular Magazines
Popular magazines range from highly respected publications such as Scientific American and The Atlantic Monthly to general interest newsmagazines like Newsweek and US News & World Report. Articles in these publications tend to be written by staff writers or freelance journalists and are geared towards a general audience. Articles in popular magazines are more likely to be shorter than those in academic journals. While most magazines adhere to editorial standards, articles do not go through a peer review process and rarely contain bibliographic citations.
These will usually not count as scholarly articles if you are required to have a certain number of scholarly articles.
Popular Books
Popular books are those published by general-interest publishers, and are often referred to as "trade" publications. These books include either non-fiction and fiction books, written for informational or entertainment purposes, by a wide variety of authors with many different backgrounds and affiliations.
How do I evaluate popular sources?
If you have questions about the popular sources you've found, see a Librarian for assistance!
Online Resources
There are so many resources online these days, it can be tempting to do most of your searching on the internet. However, be attentive to the requirements of your assignment - many research papers you will have to complete here will specifically EXCLUDE internet sources. For those papers and projects for which you are allowed to use resources found on the internet, it's essential to evaluate what you've found before planning to use it in your research or as a source for your paper. Understanding the difference between what you can find on the Web and what you can find in more traditional print sources is key to evaluating your sources. (Note that although you utilize the internet to access many of the USMA Library's collection of scholarly journals and books, when we discuss "internet" resources in this guide, we're referring to non-database, non-book sources).
Here are some things to consider when evaluating what you find on the web:
Publication Process:
Authorship and Affiliations:
Sources and quotations:
Bias and special interests:
Author qualifications:
Publication information:
Here are some places to find web-based resources that can help you with your research (while keeping in mind all the advice given above):