Finding%20the%20Right%20Sources

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Finding the Right Sources

• Dr. Steve Beatty

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Types of Sources

• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Scholarly Sources

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Primary Sources

• A first hand account.
• Grant wrote his Personal Memoirs to secure his
  family's future. In doing so, the Civil War's
  greatest general won himself a unique place in
  American letters. His character, sense of
  purpose, and simple compassion are evident
  throughout this deeply moving account, as well as
  in the letters to his wife, Julia, included here.
  "Perhaps the most revelatory autobiography of
  high command to exist in any language." John
  Keegan

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Primary Sources

• If you are researching the American Dream in the
  works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, then The Great
  Gatsby is a primary source.

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Primary Sources

• Similarly, if you are researching quest films,
  then The Lord of the Rings is a primary source.

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Secondary Sources

• An indirect account.
• If you are researching the leaders of the
  Revolutionary War, then a study of our founding
  brothers would be a secondary source.

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Secondary Sources

• Similarly, a book about film noir would be a
  secondary source. However, a film noir such as
  the classic Double Indemnity would be a primary
  source.

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Primary or Secondary?

• Which category would the Directors Commentary to
  The Godfather fall into?
• Answer Primary

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Scholarly Source

• In academia, your professors will expect you to
  utilize scholarly sources in your papers.
• So what is a scholarly source?

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Scholarly Source

• Newsweek?
• The New York Times?
• The Journal of Marketing?
• The Journal of Popular Culture?
• Ladies Home Journal?

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Scholarly Sources

• The easiest way to identify a scholarly source is
  to see if they document their sources. For
  example, Newsweek does not include parenthetical
  documentation or a Work Cited after its articles.
  Why? Because it is written for a mass audience
  not a scholarly one.

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Scholarly Source

• However, articles in the Journal of Marketing
  will have in-text documentation and a
  Bibliography. Thats because it is aimed at a
  scholarly audience and one of the things a
  scholarly audience looks for is whether the
  author has done their homework and consulted the
  proper authorities.

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Scholary Sources?

• Newsweek? No.
• The New York Times? No.
• The Journal Of Marketing? Yes.
• The Journal of Popular Culture? Yes
• Ladies Home Journal? No.

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Starting The Search

• Where are you going to search?
• What kind of sources are you looking for?
• What search terms are you going to use?
• Are you going to limit the search in any way?

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Starting the Search

• Where? Use the librarys databases not just a
  general search engine such as google.

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Starting the Search

• What kind of sources?
• Primary, Secondary, Scholarly

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Starting the Search

• Search TermsTry different terms. Senior
  Citizen Homes might not be as effective as
  Retirement Communities.

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Starting the Search

• You may want to limit the search to a specific
  time period or a specific journal, etc.

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Troubleshooting your Search

• Your search yields no results.

• Try different search terms.

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Troubleshooting your Search

• You found a great book, but its checked out.

• Recall it immediately.

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Troubleshooting your Search

• You found a perfect source, but ASU doesnt carry
  it.

• Use InterLibrary Loan.

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Troubleshooting Your Source

• Youre just plain lost and need help.

• Use ASUs Ask a Librarian Feature

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Source Criteria

• Authority
• If youre researching horror, the guy on the left
  is an authority on the subject.

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Source Criteria

• In some cases, the authority might be an
  organization or governmental agency.

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Source Criteria

• What if you dont know who the authority is?
• Review the literature and see who is constantly
  cited.

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Source Criteria

• Multiple Intelligences
• Search the lit and youll soon discover Howard
  Gardner is the authority.

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Source Criteria

• Currency
• All things being equal, we would prefer the most
  current research. After all, weve learned a bit
  about DNA in the past decade.

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Source Criteria

• However, authority trumps currency. You still
  probably should mention Freuds The
  Interpretation of Dreams if dream interpretation
  is your subject even though the book is over 100
  years old.

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Source Criteria

• Currency
• If youre researching the Civil War, youll want
  some contemporary accounts as well as the most
  current research.

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Source Criteria

• ObjectivityIn the 50s, cigarette companies
  sponsored studies that claimed smoking helped
  reduce tension and sore throats.

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Source Criteria

• Of course that would never happen today . . .
• Can you say supplements?

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Source Criteria

• Authority
• Currency
• Objectivity