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Library Research | Types
of Information Sources | Primary v. Secondary
| Books v. Periodicals | Scholarly
v. Non-scholarly | Reference v. General
Books | Print v. Electronic | When
Should I Look for a Particular Format?
There is not one correct way to go about doing research for a paper.
Research is in a lot of ways an art, not a science. If one sticks
to formulaic ways of finding information, then one will never know
the joys of serendipity. Also, do not feel bad if you feel overwhelmed
with information. This is a normal part of the research process.
No one ever said that doing research was easy, but it can be a lot
of fun.
With that said, here are some basic strategies.
- Pick a topic that interests you. You'll have a much
more enjoyable time researching.
- Read some overviews of your topic, either encyclopedia
entries or books of a general nature. This way you will learn
about various facets of your topic, in order to narrow the topic
down to something manageable. We have general encyclopedias and
subject-specific encyclopedias in the reference section. Ask a
reference librarian for suggestions on subject-specific encyclopedias.
Another common approach is to just start researching the broad
topic, and in the process of synthesizing the material, you will
determine what facet you want to focus on.
- If you find that your topic is too narrow and there
just isn't enough information about it, try the same approach
as step 2 and read some overviews on a more general version of
your topic.
- Look at the references in the books or articles you
read, to see what sources the author used to write the book/article.
Sometimes the references are annotated, or have a brief summary
of the source.
- Critically evaluate your sources. What are the author's
credentials? Is the author biased? This is especially important
when reading websites, since there usually isn't an editor to
critique what is written. But you should get in the habit of evaluating
all your sources.
Written information can be divided into several types. It is easier
to explain what kind of information the formats cover if the formats
are contrasted.
There are two kinds of sources for information, primary and secondary.
Primary sources are firsthand, "direct from the source"
information. Secondary sources are analyses of primary sources.
If you write an autobiography, that's a primary source for your
life. If someone reviews or writes a criticism of that autobiography,
then that's a secondary source for your life. Or if someone writes
a biography of you, that would also be a secondary source.
- For literature, the works by an author are primary, and the
criticism of the works are secondary.
- For historical issues, letters, diaries, and contemporary accounts
are primary sources, while anything written after the event is
a secondary source.
- For the sciences, the output from the original research on the
issue (an article on a survey conducted or the study done) is
the primary source, while any analysis or summaries of research
done by others is a secondary source.
Books
Written information can also be divided into two other forms, books
and periodicals. Books themselves come in different types. Monographic
books, a.k.a. monographs are "written once,"
or are books that stand on their own, rather than being part of
a series. The information in monographs tends to be comprehensive
information on a general topic, or at least more general than what
is found in articles. A good monograph should give you a sense of
scope, historical background, and a thorough analysis of the issue.
To get the most out of monographs, you really should read it in
its entirety, rather than just breezing through a few selected chapters.
But not all books follow the monographic format. Some are actually
a collection of essays or articles, written by different
authors. And while the articles are related somehow, the issues
within the articles can be much more focused on a smaller aspect
of the issue.
And occasionally you will find books that just cite sources of
information on an issue, called bibliographies. Bibliographies
are either comprehensive for a particular issue (within a particular
date range), or attempt to be selective, just citing the "best"
sources of information (again, within a date range), but most bibliographies
in book format are comprehensive.
Periodicals
Periodicals are any written information that comes out periodically.
(Hence the name.) Newspapers, magazines, and journals are all periodicals.
The articles within periodicals tend to be more specific or about
certain aspects of an issue, versus monographs. Periodicals take
many forms.
- Newspapers usually offer articles that are factual accounts
of events, but they can be an analysis of trends or issues as
well. Newspaper articles usually aren't written by experts in
the field and don't offer suggested readings or sources of where
they got their information. Newspaper articles are great for current
events and primary source material.
- Popular magazines are the least scholarly and are mainly
for entertainment. Articles tend to offer general tips or advice,
or interviews with celebrities.
Examples: Good Housekeeping, GQ, People,
Road & Track, Vogue, etc.
- Trade magazines are those published by associations and/or
aimed at practitioners in a particular field, offering mainly
practical, how-to articles, or news useful to the field. If the
magazine looks like it might be scholarly, but the articles within
are clearly not, then it's probably a trade magazine.
Examples: Advertising Age, Computerworld, Progressive
Farmer, etc.
- News magazines are more similar to newspapers, in that
they offer factual, current events news and analysis.
Examples: Economist, Maclean's, Newsweek,
Time, etc.
- Opinion magazines only offer analysis of issues and trends,
sometimes with a political agenda.
Examples: Christianity Today, The Nation, National
Review, New Republic, etc.
- A journal is the name given a periodical that is scholarly
in nature. Articles are written by researchers or academics and
should offer citations to sources consulted. How a particular
article winds up in the journal depends on the kind of journal
it is.
- A peer-reviewed journal accepts manuscripts and farms
them out to other experts in the field to judge the article,
usually without the name of the author. The article is then
critiqued and is either accepted, sent back to the author
for revisions, or outright rejected.
- Other journals do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, rather
they recruit particular individuals and ask them to contribute
an article. So while this type of journal isn't peer-reviewed,
it is very selective and just as prestigious to be published
in.
- And some journals aren't quite as rigorous as the two above.
The works are scholarly, but article proposals are judged
in-house by the editor or the editorial board, rather than
peer-reviewed.
Most journals will tell you straight out if they are peer-reviewed
or not in the description of its scope, near where the journal lists
the editor/editorial board. Otherwise you can consult a reference
set called Ulrich's Periodical Directory, kept behind the
Information Desk on Level 2.
One could also divide information into two camps, scholarly and
non-scholarly. Sometimes your instructors will place limits on the
types of sources you may use for your research, stating that you
can only use scholarly information. Periodicals can be clearly divided
this way, usually referred to as journals vs. magazines. But to
judge whether a book is scholarly or not, it's best to note who
the author is and what his/her credentials are, and whether there
is a bibliography and notes to sources consulted. To a certain extent
you can judge this also by the publisher. As a rule, university
presses almost always publish scholarly works, while other presses
may or may not.
But whenever your instructor states that you can only use scholarly
sources, be more vigilant in critiquing the information. Note the
credentials of the author. And if there are no references to sources,
you may want to dismiss it.
Another dichotomy in information
sources are reference sources vs. general collection books. Reference
works are those resources that you only want to "refer"
to a small section of the work, either to find a quick fact, or
to get a general overview of an issue. The information sources found
in the reference collection vary widely, but here are some common
ones.
- Encyclopedias are the best sources for reading an overview
of a topic. There are both general encyclopedias, which try to
summarize all knowledge, and subject-specific encyclopedias, which
focus only on a general topic like health or the environment,
and offer overviews of aspects of the general topic. The entries
within encyclopedias can range from a paragraph to 30 pages. Most
subject-specific encyclopedias will also offer a short bibliography
or suggestions for further reading.
- Dictionaries offer shorter definitions and summaries
of terms. Like encyclopedias, dictionaries can be general or subject-specific.
Also, just to make it even more confusing, some reference works
are entitled Dictionary of something, but are in fact encyclopedias
in terms of scope and length of the entries.
- Handbooks/Manuals/Guides are works that offer quick facts,
formulas, equations, or names and addresses for a particular subject.
- Atlases offer information in cartographic form. While
you may think of atlases as just offering maps of countries or
U.S. states, some atlases describe historical events or social
issues in map form, e.g. the changing borders of European countries,
or the percentage of people in poverty around the world.
- Almanacs offer quick facts, either for all subjects,
e.g. The World Almanac and Book of Facts, or subject-specific,
e.g. The Almanac of Illinois Politics.
- Statistical compilations describe issues with numbers.
Some are general in scope, the best known being the
Statistical Abstract, but there are some that only cover
a general subject, such as criminal justice or economics. Most
statistical compilations are published by state, federal, or international
agencies, and may then be found in the Government Publications
area, rather that Reference. See Federal
Government Information: Resources for Statistics or State
of Illinois Government Information: Resources for Statistics
for descriptions of statistical compilations.
And finally, there's print vs. electronic information. Like print,
electronic information encompasses all the formats mentioned above.
You can find electronic books, electronic periodicals, electronic
reference works, etc.
But print is not dead, for a variety of reasons.
- Publishers themselves have been somewhat wary about going completely
digital, and some of them package the electronic versions with
purchase of print copies.
- Libraries have centuries worth of print information, and a lot
of it is not going to be digitized anytime soon, if ever, simply
because it wouldn't be profitable to digitize it.
- Some types of information don't lend themselves to being read
on a computer because of the current technology, and it
isn't cost effective for individuals to print out the information.
Most e-books, e-journals, databases, and online encyclopedias are
not free. The library purchases them, then gives free access to
their patrons who have paid for library resources, either tax dollars
for public libraries and/or tuition to academic libraries.
And then there are all those free websites. There's a lot of useful
information out there in cyberspace, as well as lots of unsubstantiated,
worthless information as well. You can find information on any topic,
assuming that someone bothered to create the website.
So why would someone take the time and effort to put the website
together?
- For commercial enterprises, they bothered because they
want to sell you something, or they want to attract your attention
to bring in advertising revenue.
- For mainstream news organizations or publishers, they
are already set up to make money via advertising, so they may
be able afford to offer free content. But they may only have
a week's worth of articles available, or selected articles to
entice you to subscribe.
- For federal and state government agencies, they have
a legal mandate to disseminate information gathered via tax dollars
back to the public. So the Internet is seen as a cheaper method
of dissemination than print.
- For non-profit organizations, they want to "get
the word out" about their cause, so the Internet is a perfect
medium to distribute their own reports.
- Scholarly information generated by academics can be found,
but we are still in the infancy of the Internet being used for
this. There have been a number of big pushes to have more e-journals,
to counteract the costs of scholarly journals, especially in the
sciences. And there are a number of digitization projects of historical,
primary documents on the Web, many of them sponsored by academic
institutions.
When would you want to find one type versus another? There are
no cut and dried answers to that, and you will probably want to
explore lots of different formats, to get different aspects of your
topic.
But as a generalization:
- If you want a one or more page summary or background information,
try an encyclopedia.
- If you are looking for a more comprehensive analysis of
your topic, look for books.
- If you are looking for more detailed analysis on some aspect
of your topic, look for articles.
- If you are looking for an objective accounts of an event,
look for newspaper articles.
- If you are looking for more obscure or esoteric information,
pop culture topics, or historic primary documents,
look for websites.
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