• Do you need specific kinds of information?
• Do you need to find some basic facts or general information?
• Does the assignment require that you include a certain number of scholarly monographs (books from academic publishers), articles from scholarly journals, or web sites in your bibliography?
• Do you need case studies? information from government sources?
• Do you need to use primary sources such as data, letters, interviews, or transcripts?
• Do you need articles from newspapers?
• Does the information need to be current?
• Topics in history and literature may not depend on currency; topics in the sciences usually do.
• Generally, information in journal articles is more current than that in books.
• Do you need to consider points of view from different times in history?
• How much information do you need?
• How long will the paper or presentation be?  Information needed for a 20-page paper or an hour-long presentation will be very different than that for a 5-page paper or a 10-minute speech.
• What type of project are you working on?  An assignment requiring your reaction to a work of literature, your opinion on an issue, your analysis of a work of art may need fewer outside sources.  An assignment requiring that you argue effectively for or against an issue, compare two or more situations, or analyze a question will generally demand more sources.
• Do you need to consider different points of view?
• Editorials on a particular topic will usually offer a wide range of opinions.
• Some magazines have a point of view; for example, some are politically conservative, others are liberal.
• If you know an author who writes on a topic, look for articles by him/her. Also look for articles which cite, or refer to, the works of this author.

Need more help?

When you need help on your research project, talk to your professor, stop by the Reference Desk at one of the Libraries, make an appointment to talk with a Reference Librarian, or talk with someone in the Writing Resource Center on your campus.