Your assignment will often indicate which types of resources you should use to support your work. Whether you search the web or look for information through the library, this guide will help you become familiar with the various types of resources available to you, and the benefits of using them.
✓ Start with the assignment. Your assignment will often indicate the types of resources you should use to support your research. If it does not, clarify the expectations with your instructor.
✓ Academic information resources. Academic resources are often published and/or reviewed by experts. Books/ebooks and scholarly journals are considered academic resources.
✓ Popular information resources. Popular resources are published on social media, in magazines and newspapers, and found in various discussion forums. Popular resources often lead to the discovery of more academic resources by way of links to research studies or mentions of book titles.
✓ Evaluate everything you find. Look at information through a critical lens. Not everything will be suitable for your assignment and not everything published is entirely accurate. Use the evaluation checklists to help you with the critical analysis process.
From an information perspective, print and ebooks are the same. The main difference between them is access. Print books are physical items, whereas ebooks are digital files that can be accessed from a variety of devices.
Book publication can take a long time. First, the author researches the topic, then they write a draft. The unpublished manuscript is then sent to a publisher to be edited, rewritten, and finally ... published.
This can be a lengthy process and explains why even if a book is released in 2016, it likely doesn’t contain up-to-the-minute information.
Why use books/ebooks? Books provide overviews, background, history and introductions as well as in-depth examinations of topics. They are useful when you are looking for in-depth information on a topic or background overview of a subject area.
When researching a topic for your academic work, you may be asked to find “scholarly” / “academic” / “research” / “peer reviewed” journal articles.
These terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but not all articles are peer reviewed, and there are slight differences between these categories.
The main thing to note is that all of these types of articles are found in journals (as opposed to magazines, newspapers, or books).
Journals can be found through your library’s databases or sometimes on the web (if the journal is “open access” - meaning there is no paywall before you read the articles).
Some journals (categorized as “peer-reviewed journals”) specifically publish articles that have been peer-reviewed. In order for an article to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it has to go through a formal submission process which includes a peer review stage where experts ensure the accuracy, originality, significance, and other characteristics of the research before it is accepted for publication. These articles are highly regarded because the findings and results have been reviewed by experts in the field. Therefore, peer-reviewed articles are viewed as credible and authoritative.
In a research article a researcher, or group of researchers, present findings of their research. These articles can also be considered academic and scholarly, and they may be peer-reviewed.
The terms academic and scholarly journal articles are used interchangeably, and can also sometimes be peer-reviewed research articles, but can also be opinion pieces or book reviews if they are published in peer-reviewed journals. When you search for a journal article, make sure to look at the title and content. If your instructor wants you to find a full-length research article, you don’t want to choose an opinion piece or book review.
Download the below documents to learn more about journal articles:
Trade magazines or trade journals publish articles aimed at people working in a particular field. The content focuses on information about working in the profession, trends, and news related to that field or trade, rather than academic research.
Consider this type of source to be more practical than the more theoretical and philosophical academic journals.
Examples of trade magazines/journals include:
Popular magazines publish articles that typically focus on information from pop culture. Articles are usually short, with a casual tone, and often have images embedded throughout.
Examples of popular magazines include:
In comparison, scholarly articles are long, black and white, and have statistical tables and graphs included as part of the research. Academic papers also have a long list of references available at the end of the paper.
While popular magazine articles are informative, and often mention academic research, they may not be the best choice to include as part of academic research. However, you may be able to track down the original study that the popular article mentions and use that as one of your sources.
Open access journals are online academic publications, made available to readers without subscription fees, free of charge. Traditional publishers (e.g. Sage, Oxford University Press) also make some of their content available through open access.
Examples of open access journals:
Open access articles can be found through Google, Google Scholar, or any other search engine, as well as through the NWP Learning Commons.
When using open-access literature for academic work, make sure to evaluate the content critically.
Grey literature refers to materials published non-commercially. These materials can be made available by the government, academia, not-for-profit, business and trade organizations, in print and digital formats. Examples of grey literature include:
Conference proceedings
Reports (e.g. statistical, technical, committee reports)
White papers
Flyers
Newsletters
Fact sheets
Theses and dissertations
Patents
Unpublished materials
Why use grey literature? It is sometimes more current than published research, and it is a great way to supplement your research, providing your project with a full picture viewpoint. You can find grey literature online, by searching Google (or another search engine), and/or Google Scholar.
Websites are the most prolific of online resources and can be found using a search engine (like Google). Websites can serve a variety of purposes, here are a few examples:
When using information from websites for your academic work, make sure to evaluate the content critically.
Social media posts can be a great source of information. Social media can also add to information overload. In order to tap into the most relevant information, identify relevant #hashtags, @profiles, conversation threads, and blogs on your topic of interest.
Here are examples of the different types of social media platforms:
Whenever you use content found on social media for your academic work, make sure to evaluate the content critically.
Primary vs. Secondary
The University of New South Wales has an excellent guide to the differences between primary and secondary sources available at https://www.library.unsw.edu.au/using-the-library/information-resources/primary-and-secondary-sources
In short, primary sources are generally the first appearance or report of new knowledge. They're observations made by someone who witnessed the event, whether in the form of a letter written to a friend, a piece of art, a new law as drafted by the government, or a scientific report published for the first time.
Secondary sources generally involve provide additional context or analysis of primary sources, often with the goal of convincing the reader of a particular perspective.
Attribution
Unless otherwise stated, the material in this guide is from the Learning Portal created by College Libraries Ontario. Content has been adapted for the NWP Learning Commons in June 2021. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY NC SA 4.0 International License.
All icons on these pages are from The Noun Project. See individual icons for creator attribution.