Information Desk
This library information desk at the Delft University of Technology Library is made from books (see the blog post on it at Recyclart).
Using Citation Management Software
Zotero and Refworks are powerful tools that not only help you organize the information you gather, but also help you format the citations in your papers correctly. They support a wide variety of citation formats (MLA, APA, Turabian, etc.). Ask a librarian about how to get started using Zotero or Refworks.
5: Finding Sources
Finding and using reliable sources is one of the steps of the research process that moves you from having an opinion to having an educated opinion. You will need to read widely among the types of sources that academic papers require. Academic sources include:
- books (sometimes called "monographs"),
- articles (from popular, professional, and scholarly publishers),
- newspaper articles, and
- primary sources (diaries, interviews, novels and literature, oral histories, etc.)
Websites are often not acceptable sources for college-level papers.
The boxes on this page give you information on why you would use each of these four main types of sources, how you would find these types of sources at Baylor, and provides links on how to read effectively.
Using OneSearch to Find Resources
Books
Books provide an in-depth treatment of a topic or subject. The length of a book means the author can include more information and cover more issues than can be included in a journal article. Scholarly books (or monographs) are published after about 2-3 years of research and writing by the author, and time spent by the publishers and editors reading and proofing the text, checking the references, and printing and marketing the book.
There are features of scholarly books that will help you grasp what the author intends. The first of these is the "Introduction" Here, the author tells you what are the main goals s/he has in writing this book, outlines the content of each chapter, and explains why this book is important. There is also the sources used in writing the book. These maybe presented towards the end of the book in a bibliography, or at the end of each chapter in a section labeled notes, or further readings. These sections will tell you which scholars and materials were used to help form the author's ideas and conclusions. Lastly, there is usually an index which will help you find specific instances of a concept, person, place, or event mentioned within the book.
Baylor Libraries doesn't own all the books published. To find books on your topic that we don't own, use WorldCat, which will list books in libraries in the United States and around the world.
- WorldCat - Finding Books Baylor Doesn't OwnSince Baylor can't own everything, also try using WorldCat to locate books we don't own and to make certain your research for books is thorough and complete.
- Book Reviews (listings)While book reviews won't substitute for reading the book, they can help you understand what the book is about and how it fits into the other scholarship and research on the topic. From this link choose "Reviews and Guides" from the pull down menu. Try Book Index with Reviews, Book Review Digest, and Book Review Digest Retro. It helps to have the original publication date and to check for 3 - 5 years after that date (scholarly reviews often take that long to appear).
Articles
Articles will provide in-depth information on a focused topic. There are generally three types of articles: those from popular journals (ex.: Time/Newsweek, Scientific American, Sports Illustrated), professional journals (ex.: Forbes, Corrections Today, Florida Nurse), and academic/scholarly/peer-reviewed (ex.: Public Health Nursing, Journal of Human Rights, Black Scholar).
The links below will help you search for articles of various types, learn how to read the citation for the article, and identify if you have found a popular, professional, or scholarly journal.
- Reading a Journal CitationWhat does all this stuff mean? How do I know if this is a book, an article, or a chapter in a book? A quick online training session for identifying the parts of a citation and how to tell what kind of item is being cited.
- Recognizing Scholarly, Popular, and Professional ArticlesHandy chart listing the key features of each of these types of journal & magazine articles
News Sources/Newspapers
News sources are useful for getting information on an event as soon as it happens or for finding out how people responded to an event (the bombing of Hiroshima, for example) at the time it happened.
While news articles are not usually part of a research paper, they may be needed to present the background information. Two good sources are listed below.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851 to three years before the current year)Provides searching and digital access to the New York Times newspaper from its beginnings in 1851 to three years short of the current year. Basic and advanced searching features; limiters include date and document type (articles, birth notices, obituaries, display ads, real estate, etc.). Primary Source. ProQuest. This database offers full-page-images and article images from the New York Times dating back to 1851 (called New York daily times, 1851-1857). Digital reproductions of every page from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files. It provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Primary Sources
Primary sources can be the novel you are studying in class, a newspaper article about the California Gold Rush, or the diary a 19th century slave. Using primary sources in your paper can add a first-hand account of social conditions or events, but may not be needed in every paper you write. You want to be sure you are using an authentic primary source, not a faked one. Below are links to how to find primary sources in Onesearch or WorldCat which also links to the research guide to primary sources created for Baylor researchers.
- Search Smart - Primary SourcesWhat terms can you use to quickly find diaries, letters, and original documents?
Web Sources
Sometimes when writing a paper or working on a project, you are allowed to use appropriate websites for information. Please first check with your instructor to see whether or not you are allowed to use a website for information. If you are, use these tools listed here to evaluate the websites you find and to determine whether they are of significant quality to use for a college-level assignment.
- Google ScholarIf you need more than general information on a topic, switch to using Google Scholar. It will draw results only from academic university presses and academic and scholarly journals. You will also return fewer results than Google which are also more appropriate for college-level work. (If you search Google Scholar from the Baylor Libraries' homepage, Baylor Infolinks will appear to the right of the titles of articles and resources Baylor has access to).
- Research Using the InternetFrom the University of Toronto some good advice on what to do before you start an Internet search, suggested Internet sources and some University of Toronto Library links (remember, we'll have similar ones at Baylor you can get to).
