Summary

For every assignment, you will likely need to use a variety of sources to identify the best information:

  • Encyclopedias and books provide overviews of topics, from general to the very specific.
  • Magazines and newspapers are geared to the general public.
  • Trade or professional journals cover developments in a field, such as banking or hotel management.
  • Scholarly journals publish academic research
  • Web sites are a veritable fountain of information, buy you have to consider their accuracy and reliability.

In this section of Research 101, you have learned:

  • To identify the types of information sources that are available for a topic
  • How information is created, disseminated and used
  • To select appropriate types of information sources for your assignment, including books, scholarly journals, magazines, trade journals, newspapers and Internet sites.
  • To differentiate between scholarly, popular and professional periodicals.

You are ready to move on to the next unit of Research 101, Searching.