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This section and the section on Types of Sources work together. That’s because knowing the kinds of information in each category of sources will help you choose the right kind of information to meet each of your information needs. And some of those needs are very particular.
Information needs are why you need sources. Meeting those needs is what you’re going to do with sources when you are given a research assignment (in whatever form it may manifest, such as a research paper, a presentation along with an annotated bibliography, a literature review, etc.)
Here are those needs:
- To learn more background information.
- To respond to your research question(s).
- To convince your audience that your response or claim are supported and is the most reasonable answer.
- To describe the situation surrounding your research question for your audience and explain why it’s important.
- To report what others have said about your question, including any other reasonable responses to your research question.
Tip:
For another way to think about the work your sources do, see Roles of Research Sources.
The verbs in the list of information needs above tell you exactly how you’ll use sources to carry out your research and create your final product: to learn, respond, convince, describe, and report. But you won’t be doing any of that alone.
Your sources will give you information with which to reason. They’ll also give you direct quotes and information to summarize and paraphrase as you create your final product. In other words, your sources will support you every step of the way during your research project.
Needs and Final Products
Background information may seldom appear directly in any final product. If your assignment is to write a research paper, your paper will contain sections that will invariably address each of your information needs. However, for final products other than research papers, you’ll have the same needs and will use sources to meet them. But not all needs will result in a section of your final product.
The following are some examples of academic information needs you have already or will encounter:
Posters & Information Needs
On a poster about your own original research, you aren’t likely to have room to describe the situation surrounding your research question and why the question is important. That same lack of space may mean you do not report what others have said about your question. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t meet those needs and others as you carried out your research—unlike a term paper or article, the poster format in which you reported it just has less space, literally (!).
For instance, in order to justify to yourself and your professor for doing the research, you probably started by meeting the information need of describing the situation and why it is important. Your instructor may have you turn in that justification. And in order to do research based on what has already been found out, you will have studied what others have already reported. You also had to do that in order to make your response to your research question more believable. But that doesn’t mean you had room on your poster to say you actually did all that background preparation.
