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Library Instruction: Sources

What types of sources can I use?

Framing Your Research

Framing Your Research

When trying to decide if a source is pertinent to your research question or topic, it can be helpful to ask yourself: What could a writer do with this source? Could this source provide background facts or information? Could I analyze or interpret this source for my reader? Could this source refine my question or extend my thesis? Could this source be a lens for interpreting competing findings?

Glossary

Is it Library gobbledy-gook? What we mean to say:

  • Bibliography: A bibliography is a list of all of the sources that authors, including you, use in the process of researching and writing. In general, a citation in a bibliography should include:  Author, Title, Publisher, Place of Publication, and Date of Publication.
  • Primary Source: Primary Source is used to describe several different types of sources. In the Sciences a Primary Source is an original research article. In the Humanities, a primary source could be the text of a novel or it could be an artifact like a map or a diary.
  • Scholarly Source: Scholarly sources are different from news sources because rather than reporting an event, scholarly sources ask and answer questions through some form of analysis. Scholarly sources are written by experts-- people who know a lot about their subject like professors-- and they also refer to other sources in a works cited/references list to show where their information came from originally.