Subject & Course Guides: College Readiness Skills and Resources: Source Types

Source Types - Links to additional resource pages

See additional pages in this guide related to Source Types with more details about Scholarly Journals, Primary vs. Secondary Sources, and Additional Online Resources .

Why use Newspapers?

[Credit: Goodshoot/Alamy]

Newspapers articles are not academic or scholarly sources since they are not peer-reviewed, they do not document their sources, and they are written by journalists for the general public, not by specialists for other specialists. Many instructors will often restrict students' research to scholarly sources like books and academic journals, but there are times when newspapers can be useful research tool:

Current Information
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The information found in books and academic journals may take months or years to come to print. Newspapers specialize in providing information on a weekly or daily basis. If you are looking for information about something that happened within the last several days, weeks or months, you may only find it in a newspaper.
Local Information
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While some newspapers (like the New York Times) have a very large circulation and report mostly on regional, national or international events, other newspapers specialize in communities and issues that may be ignored by the larger presses. Look to smaller papers and newsletters (minority presses, radical presses, neighborhood and community presses) for differing perspectives and interesting stories not represented anywhere else.
Historical Information
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Modern newspapers have been providing readers with news since the 18th century and some of these papers are available for you to read. Many libraries subscribe to databases with full page scans of the Times of London back to 1785, The New York Times to 1851 and Harpers back to 1857. If you want to know how journalists were covering the American Civil War in England, read the paper.
Primary Source Information
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Newspapers can be a useful source for primary resource information: interviews, editorials, first-hand accounts, etc. These accounts not only add interest to your paper, they may help your reader understand the importance and impact of your topic more clearly.

Source Types

The process of researching and writing an academic paper typically requires the use and evaluation of appropriate scholarly sources.

This page provides links to handouts, resources and tutorials focused on academic and non-academic SOURCE TYPES, including: SCHOLARLY JOURNALS, PRIMARY VS. SECONDARY SOURCES, ADDITIONAL ONLINE SOURCES, and more.

Why use books?

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Question: What value lies in books? Why, for example, would a researcher choose a book over a journal?

Answer: Because of their length, books tend to provide more comprehensive treatment of a topic. Books can also be useful for providing footnotes to additional materials.

Why use reference works?

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Question: What value lies in a reference work? Why, for example, would a researcher bother to consult a scholarly encyclopedia?

Answer: Reference books help researchers contextualize their topics and in turn begin to ask the right questions. Reference books set the stage for more efficient database searching; researchers cannot elicit relevant search results if they don't know which keywords (or search terms) to use.

Scholarly reference books also contain bibliographies that lead researchers to the most respected secondary and most useful primary sources on a topic.

In short, reference books are a great way to begin your research.

Why use scholarly sources? -- Academic vs. Non-Academic Sources

Critically Analyzing Information Sources: Critical Appraisal and Analysis
University Library - Cornell University

Academic sources are set apart from non-academic sources because they are written by experts in their field, and they are reviewed by peers (other experts) before they are published to ensure they are both timely and accurate. Academic sources are written for readers already knowledgeable in the field, therefore, they contain subject specific jargon and are narrowly focused. Your instructors expect you to use academic sources in your writing and unless told otherwise, avoid non-academic sources.