Authority Level |
Source Type / Audience / Purpose |
---|---|
Academic QualityExperts communicating with other experts and/or specialized audiences. May be peer-reviewed or have authors with noted academic or professional credentials; cites sources. |
Academic journalsPeer-reviewed articles that present research or criticism from scholars in a relevant academic field of study |
Scholarly Talks / Books / ReportsPublished by universities, professional or government organizations to present research findings or recommendations—some TED Talks; books from academic presses (publisher will often be a “university press”); reports from scholarly professional organizations. Specialized Subject Encyclopedias with ‘signed articles’ – overviews written by academic experts in the area of study |
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Government documentsStatistics, facts, and figures assembled by government agencies and entities; e.g., Bureau of Labor Statistics, IRS, some .gov. sites, Occupational Outlook Handbook, etc. |
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Trade books, publications, & web sitesInformation written for people who work in the industry the source reports on—covering more detail than a “general” publication for that profession-- e.g., Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Architectural Digest, Communication Arts, etc. |
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General Audiences, InformativeContent written to be read by general audiences typically meant to be informative and provide fact-checked information; often written by reporters and/or overseen by a non-specialist editor.
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Specialized magazines, books & web sites (topic-focused)Consumer-oriented information catering to niche markets-- Car & Driver, Scientific American, National Geographic, Wired, WebMD.com, lots of .edu & .gov web sites with general information
Specialized Reference Articles with general editors / no authorEncyclopedia or other overview articles written in more detail and content depth than a general dictionary or general encyclopedia article.
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General interest magazines, newspapers, books, & web sitesGeneral sources written for a wide public audience, often on a range of topics-- city newspapers, general news websites (BBC, etc), Sports Illustrated, Atlantic, New Yorker, most corporate web sites.
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General Audiences:Biased, Entertainment, Too Shallow, or UnreliableThese sources are either too short or they are primarily meant to entertain and convey opinion without much fact-checking. Tools that are crowd-sourced fall here, because we don’t always know the biases of the most recent editors / authors. |
|
Type of Resource |
Information Time Lag (How long does it take for a real-life event to be included after it happens?) |
Amount of Information |
How to Find It |
---|---|---|---|
TV / Web / Radio News; Social Media feeds |
minutes |
a few sentences* |
TV & Web search engines |
Newspapers [print] |
1 day |
few paragraphs -- 1 or 2 pages |
article databases & library newspaper indexes |
Popular Magazines [print] (Time, Economist) |
1 week -- month |
1 -- 5 pages |
article databases & web search engines |
Academic Journals [print & electronic] |
6 months or more |
2 -- 40+ pages |
academic databases |
Online Reference (encyclopedias, reference databases) |
10 months -- year* (*Wikipedia is not included here; see "web" for Wikipedia) |
few paragraphs to 1 -2 pages (overviews, summaries) |
Holman Library website |
Books (printed & ebooks) |
about 1 year |
over 100 pages |
Holman Library website - Online catalog |
Print Reference Resources |
2 or more years |
few paragraphs to 1 -2 pages (overviews, summaries) |
Holman Library catalog or the reference section at the library |
* Note: Web articles that were produced for items under a "news embargo" (e.g. the writer / producer was given early information about a product / event / item and asked to wait to publish it until a set time) may be long and detailed-- in this case, the time to produce the article looks "short" to us but is actually in line with the "Magazines" timeline (a week to a month) -- the writer / producer just worked ahead of the event.