Because there are several categories of sources (see Types of Sources), the options you have to meet your information needs can seem complex.

Pay attention to when only primary and secondary sources are required to meet a need and to when only professional and scholarly sources will work.

These descriptions and summaries of when to use what kind of source should help.

To Learn Background Information

When you first get a research assignment and perhaps for a considerable time afterward, you will almost always have to learn some background information as you develop your research question and explore how to answer it.

Sources from any category and from any subgroup within a category – except journal articles – can meet students’ need to learn background information and understand a variety of perspectives. Journal articles, are usually too specific to be background. From easy-to-understand to more complex sources, read and/or view those that advance your knowledge and understanding.

For instance, especially while you are getting started, secondary sources that synthesize an event or work of art and tertiary sources such as guidebooks can be a big help. Wikipedia is a good tertiary source of background information.

Sources you use for background information don’t have to be sources that you cite in your final report, although some may be.

One important reason for finding background information is to learn the language that professionals and scholars have used when writing about your research question. That language will help you later, particularly when you’re searching for sources to answer your research question.

To identify that language, you can always type the word glossary and then the discipline for which you’re doing your assignment in the search engine search box.

To Answer Your Research Question

You have to be much pickier with sources to meet this need because only certain choices can do the job.

Only primary and secondary sources (from the category called publication mode) can be used to answer your research question and, in addition, those need to be professional and/or scholarly sources for most disciplines (humanities, social sciences, and sciences). Also, the author’s purpose for most disciplines should be to educate and inform. (As you may remember, primary sources are those created at the same time as an event you are researching or that offer something original, such as an original performance or a journal article reporting original research. Secondary sources analyze or otherwise react to other secondary sources and primary sources. Because of the information lifecycle, the latest secondary sources are often the best because their creators have had time for better analysis and more information to incorporate.)