Not all resources are created equal! There are a number of criteria to consider when determining whether or not a source is reliable (able to be trusted) and appropriate for your academic work.
Learning the difference primary and secondary sources is important. Ideally, you want to include both types of sources in your work.
Primary Sources | Secondary Sources |
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Primary Source Information comes directly from real life data or from the time of an event. Examples include:
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Secondary Source Information comes from a collection of primary-source data that is drawn together to provide a larger picture view of an event or to provide an opinion or review. Examples include:
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How can you tell the difference between types of periodicals? |
Popular magazines / Newspaper articles |
Trade, industry and professional journals |
Journals of commentary and opinion |
Scholarly & research journals |
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Author |
Usually a staff writer or journalist. Sometimes the author's name is not provided. | Writers with subject knowledge or practitioners and professionals. | Great variety: specialists, journalists, organizational members, others. | Primarily experts, often university researchers, whose credentials are usually included. |
Audience |
Written for the "average" person who doesn't have in-depth knowledge of a topic. | Multiple levels of readers: general public to practitioners and professionals. | General audience, high school and up. | Aimed at professionals, researchers, scholars, or others with more in-depth knowledge of the topic. |
Content |
Entertainment, opinion, current topics, quick facts. | Trends, forecasts, news and events in the field; products, book reviews, employment, biography. | Commentary on social and political issues, specific viewpoints, book reviews. | Research, analysis, scholarship. Often includes abstract, research methods, conclusion, bibliography. |
Length |
Shorter articles providing broad overviews of topics or recent news and trends. | Short newsy items to longer, in-depth articles. | Varies: short, pithy, articles to more in-depth discussion. An issue may be devoted to a particular topic. | Longer articles providing in-depth analysis of topics.* |
Appearance |
Glossy, color pictures, advertisements (magazines). | Ads related to the field or profession. Charts, tables, illustrations | Varies considerably. Some have graphics and advertisements. | Dense text, usually with graphs and charts, fewer specialized, advertisements. |
Credibility |
Ads related to the field or profession. Charts, tables, illustrations. | Articles reviewed by editors from professional associations or commercial/trade organizations. | Publications support a particular viewpoint or specific interest group. Opinionated. | Articles reviewed by a "jury" of experts--"peer-reviewed" or "refereed"—before publication.* |
Examples |
Magazines: People, Essence, Hispanic, Good Housekeeping, Out, Time, Vogue, Sports Illustrated Newspapers: Seattle Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal |
RN, Library Journal, Professional Builder, Contractor Magazine, Restaurant Hospitality | National Review, America, Harper’s, New Republic, Commentary, Progressive, Atlantic | Journal of American History, Nature, Journal of Business, Lancet, Bioscience |
Adapted from ACC Library Services Libguides.
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Here we can see the cover of the book, the title and the author.
Within the first page of the book, you should expect to see information about the author. In the image below, you can see a small section that explains who the author is.
The author bio establishes the author's expertise in her field. By reading this biography section on her, we can see that she has a PhD, and has researched, worked and written in her field since 1990.
This image below shows a part of the text from one of the pages. Notice the presence of in-text citations. All claims are thoroughly sourced and backed up. Note too the academic tone and language of the text.
Finally, you should expect to see references - multiple pages of citations that give credit to the sources the author used during the research for the book. The image below is just that, showing that this larger work is thoroughly referenced. This is page 1 of 15 pages of references.
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Look through the images and notes below to learn more about the various parts common to a scholarly article
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Review the table below for more information about where you can look to find information based on your specific information need
If you need... |
Try this source... |
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up-to-the-minute news |
World Wide Web, broadcast media |
current daily information |
newspapers, web-based news, broadcast media |
local information |
newspapers, web-based news, broadcast media |
in-depth, thorough treatments of a topic of subject
|
books |
background information
|
subject encyclopedias |
statistics and data |
statistics reference books, online statistical sources |
research on a focused topic
|
scholarly journals |
historical information |
books |
popular events
|
magazines, broadcast media |
primary research
|
scholarly journals |
editorials and opinions
|
newspapers |
current data from government agencies
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world wide web |
reliable, broad overview of topics
|
subject encyclopedias |
This chart is used courtesy of Clark College Library, IRIS: Types of Information.