37 Using Sources in Your Writing
Teaching & Learning, University Libraries and Christina Frasier
Learning Objectives
- Identify different types of sources.
- Recognize what type of information the source has.
- Categorize available sources according to how they meet your needs.
- 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.
Knowing the kinds of information in each category of sources will help you choose the right kind of information to meet each of your information needs. And some of those needs are very particular.
Information needs are why you need sources. Meeting those needs is what you’re going to do with sources as you complete your research project.
Here are those needs:
- To learn more background information.
- To answer your research question(s).
- To convince your audience that your answer is correct or, at least, the most reasonable answer.
- To describe the situation surrounding your research question for your audience and explain why it’s important.
- To report what others have said about your question, including any different answers to your research question.
Sources to meet needs
Because there are several categories of sources (see Types of Sources), the options you have to meet your information needs can seem complex.
Our best advice is to pay attention to when only primary and secondary sources are required to meet a need and to when only professional and scholarly sources will work. If your research project is in the arts, also pay attention to when you must use popular sources, because popular sources are often primary sources in the arts.
These descriptions and summaries of when to use