Research 101 (older version): What Kinds of Sources Should I Use?

Common Terms for Source Types

Scholarly article: written by an expert in the field and reviewed by peers in the field, include references and have a academic style.  Learn more about what "peer-reviewed" means and how to tell if an article is peer-reviewed.

• Note: In many databases, you can limit your search to scholarly, peer-reviewed or refereed journals. However, this option is not perfect, as it may also remove some peer-reviewed content that is still peer-reviewed. 

 Professional/trade article: published in trade or professional journals and written by experts in the field or by staff writers, mainly intended for professionals in a given field but generally easier to read than most scholarly articles, not 'scholarly' but may still have useful information.

• Examples: School Library Journal, Harvard Business Review, Engineering and Mining Journal, and American Biology Teacher. 

Magazines: written for a general audience. Some magazines are well-researched, complex, and provide thoughtful in-depth reportage and reflection, others are superficial and driven mostly by commercial or heavily biased interests, and others fall in-between. Consider your source carefully.

• Examples: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, People, and Rolling Stone

Primary sources: created during the period being studied, documents what is being studied in some way.

• Examples: newspaper articles from the time period, government documents, letters, diaries, autobiographies, speeches, oral histories, museum artifacts, and photographs.

Secondary source: one step removed from an event, analyzes primary sources.

• Examples: a book about the Vietnam War based on records from the time, a journal article about Dominican immigrants' experiences in the Bronx . (Most books and articles are secondary sources.)

Learn more about where to search for different kinds of materials.

Also consider the purpose of your sources for this research project. What do you hope to accomplish by using sources?

Some common reasons you might use sources in your own work include: 

• to communicate your understanding of an issue and your credibility 
• to inspire and enrich your own ideas 
• to show how your voice enters into an intellectual conversation
• to acknowledge the work of others
• to connect readers to related research

Adapted from Yale College Writing Center's "Using Sources" webpage.

When using sources for research assignments...

Has your professor recommended or required certain types of sources? Some professors require you to use only scholarly (sometimes called academic or peer-reviewed) journals, primary sources, newspapers, or books from the library. Oters might be open to other sources if you can show why they are credible and relevant.

Consider the types of information you need to answer your research question or make your argument.