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CU Scarborough - Library Guide: Choosing resources

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Choosing resources

To produce high quality work you need to use accurate, up to date and reliable information.

These five simple steps will help you: 

① Spend time thinking about exactly what it is you are looking for. Does your information need to be specific to a country? What is the earliest date that would be relevant? What different terms might people use to refer to the same thing. eg. marketing, sales, advertising etc.?

② Try your search terms in a number of different places. Use Locate, a subject specific database, a text book, a blog from an expert; don't just use Google!

③ Ask yourself questions about the resources. Who has written this? Why was it written? Is it factual or an opinion piece? How does it compare to other sources?

④ Keep a clear record of your results so that you can find them again. Your internet history can only get you so far...

⑤ Use the best results from your first searches to suggest new searches. For example, you could look at a specific author who comes up a lot or a term or phrase that recurred in your initial search.

Types of resources

Books (and ebooks) in the library are a good source of information and are great to introduce you to a topic, give you an overview and explain key theories and concepts. Books might be written by one or more authors (these are sometimes called monographs), or might be edited collections of chapters on a wider topic by different people.

Journal articles are short papers, focused on a very specific topic. These are then printed in journals that specialise in particular areas. Articles go into more detail than a textbook, but focused on a very particular part of an issue. They generally provide more up to date and cutting-edge research than books.

Websites can be helpful, but when you're using them always consider if the author (person or company) is an expert in their field, or if the website is appropriate to use in the context of your work. If you can't find a named author or when the information was written, think very carefully about using the site in your assignments!

Newspapers can provide up-to-date examples to illustrate theory you are using in your assignments, as well as giving perspectives on an issue. Be careful with using them as your only source to support a claim, as there is a lot of editorial bias in most newspapers.

Statistics add proof to your assignments, and can be used on their own or in conjunction with other sources to advance your argument.