Types of Sources
Image Attribution: "Types of Sources (Infographic)" by Toronto Metropolitan University Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License
Click for Text Description of Types of Sources (Infographic)
Types of Sources
Books: In-Depth, detailed coverage of a topic and background information.
Articles:
Newspapers: Up-to-date, national and regional information for a general audience.
Internet: eg, Good for finding sources like Government and not-for-profit reports.
When doing research, it's important to know the different types of sources available: scholarly and popular.
Popular sources are aimed at the general public and often provide a brief overview of a topic. They can be found in websites and magazines.
Scholarly sources are written by academics and experts in a field. These types of articles are typically found in academic journals and provide detailed analysis or research on specific topics, often including data, charts, graphs, and diagrams. Scholarly articles are useful for assignments that require research-based information to support your thesis.
One type of scholarly article is known as “peer reviewed.” These articles go through a strict review process by academic experts before being published.
“Peer reviewed” articles go through a strict review process by academic experts before being published. Experts evaluate the quality and research in order to verify its validity.
Peer reviewed articles are found exclusively in scholarly journals.
Peer reviewed journals include research done by scholars, who use methods like experiments or surveys to gather data. These journals also contain analyses of data by researchers.
Some of our databases contain filters to narrow down to articles from peer reviewed publications only.
When a teacher asks students to find primary sources, they are looking for evidence from people who experienced the historical period first-hand. Primary sources should be distinguished from secondary sources. Secondary sources are documents created after the fact that refer back to primary sources.
Peer reviewed articles are often filled with data and research, making them overwhelming for most students. However, there are easier ways to extract the most relevant information for your research.
Using the following steps can help break down the article into more consumable parts. If you find the article beneficial, you can then go back and delve into the details to retrieve any relevant data for your work.