Chapter 41: Gathering Reliable Information
The textbook Successful Writing introduces strategies that will help you locate reliable information for any college-level paper. While you were choosing a paper topic and determining your research questions, you conducted preliminary research to stimulate your thinking. You may even have identified a few potential sources. Now it is time to conduct a more focused, systematic search for informative primary sources and secondary sources.
Using Primary and Secondary Sources
Writers classify research resources in two categories: primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources are direct, firsthand sources of information or data. For example, if you were writing a paper about the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, the text of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights would be a primary source.
Other primary sources include the following:
- Research Articles
- Literary Texts
- Historical documents such as diaries or letters
- Autobiographies or other personal accounts
- Podcasts
Secondary sources discuss, interpret, analyze, consolidate, or otherwise rework information from primary sources. In researching a paper about the First Amendment, you might read articles about legal cases that involved First Amendment rights or editorials expressing commentary on the First Amendment. These sources would be considered secondary sources because they are one step removed from the primary source of information.
The following are examples of secondary sources:
- Magazine articles
- Biographical books
- Literary and scientific reviews
- Television documentaries
Your topic and purpose determine whether you must cite both primary and secondary sources in your paper. Ask yourself which sources are most likely to provide answers your research questions. If you are writing a research paper about reality television shows, you will need to use some reality shows as a primary source, but secondary sources, such as a reviewer’s critique, are also important. If you are writing about the health effects of nicotine, you will probably want to read the published results of scientific studies, but secondary sources, such as magazine or journal articles discussing the outcome of a recent study, may also be helpful.
Once you have thought about what kinds of sources are most likely to help you answer your research questions, you may begin your search for print and electronic resources. The challenge here is to conduct your search efficiently, so writers use strategies to help them find the sources that are most relevant and reliable while steering clear of sources that will not be useful.
Finding Resources
When you begin researching your topic, you will likely use various sources—anything from books and periodicals to video presentations and in-person interviews.
Your sources will include both primary sources and secondary sources. As you conduct research, you will want to take detailed, careful notes about your discoveries.