Searching for Information on a Topic

4.4 Types of Information Sources

Identifying Information Sources

When you’re doing any kind of research, you are likely to encounter many different types of information sources. Usually, your instructor will ask you to find scholarly or academic sources, which are written by experts with the goal of advancing knowledge in their field.

The following interactive slides list some common information sources and their characteristics. Click on the information icons for tips and examples.

 

Check Your Understanding

The Peer Review Process

Your course instructor might ask you to find peer-reviewed or scholarly articles on a topic. But what does peer review actually mean? The next video explains.

When you use the main library search box, you can limit your results to “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals” in the “Refine Results” menu so that you only find peer-reviewed articles.

The Resource Type menu, with Academic Journals selected

Check Your Understanding

In the next module, you’ll learn about citing your sources.

definition

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Library Research Skills for First Year Seminar Students Copyright © 2021 by Augustana Campus Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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