Scholarly journals are publications that have a regular schedule (monthly, quarterly, biannually, etc.) for researchers to publish their original research. They also include reviews of new books or resources and general updates in their field.
Scholarly journals are typically peer-reviewed, which means that fellow experts in that field have verified the article's contents. This process can take some time so scholarly articles are often published months or years after an event.
This type of source is used to get an expert's opinion on a specific field of study.
. You can also Google the name of the journal to find their website and search their About or Submissions pages to see if they mention "peer-review."
Trade publications are publications that also have a regular schedule (usually monthly or quarterly) for researchers to publish updates on in-progress research or general conversations about actively working in that field of study or industry. They are written by active professionals or practitioners in the field for fellow professional and practitioners. They undergo a general editing process for content, style, and grammar but are not peer-reviewed.
This type of source is used to get a practitioner's opinion on a topic. They are usually closer to a situation than the authors of scholarly journal articles and discuss things in terms of practical application.
Popular sources are publications that also have a regular schedule (usually daily or weekly) for journalists to share news with the general public. They undergo a general editing process for content, style, and grammar but are not peer-reviewed.
This type of source is to get the general public's view on a topic or learn about a very recent event.
If you Google the name of the publication and look at their About page, it will not mention "peer-review." There will probably be a contact page for the list of editors of the publication.Sources can be described as primary, secondary, and tertiary. These categories describe how many layers of interpretation a source has.*
Click the tabs at the top of this box to learn about each layer of interpretation.
*Many sources will have a combination of primary and secondary source information. It is rare to find raw information without any interpretation accompanying it.
A primary source is raw information or the thing being studied. This can look differently depending on the discipline. In the sciences, raw information could be a data set; in the humanities, raw information could be the piece of art, a manuscript, or sound recording; in the social science, raw information could be a diary, newspaper clippings of an event, or census data.
Primary sources contain the information that is the focus of your research.
While the databases listed below can be used to find primary sources for a variety of topics, some disciplines have specific collections. See a subject guide for more resources.
A digital collection of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews by leaders within the black community.
Gale Primary Sources provides an interactive research environment that allows researchers to cross-search Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), the Times Digital Archive, the Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, Sabin Americana, 1500-1926, Archives of Sexuality and Gender, Womens Studies Archive. Users can also discover and analyze content in new ways.
A collection of primary source exhibits for students and scholars of queer history and culture. The database uses "queer" in its most inclusive sense, to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and includes work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT. Each document collection in the database includes a critical introductory essay that helps explain the significance of the primary sources in historical terms and in relation to previous scholarship.
For best results please use Chrome for this database.
Secondary sources are interpretations of raw information. They may or may not contain the raw data. For example, an anthology of letters written by a historical figure can contain the primary source of photographs or transcriptions of the original letters and be accompanied by the secondary source of short essays that provide context for the letters. Most books and journal articles will fall into this category.
Secondary sources provide context for the information at the focus of your research.
While the databases listed below can be used to find secondary sources for a variety of topics, some disciplines have specific databases or collections. See a subject guide for more resources.
This is a multi-disciplinary, full-text database which includes 4,000 peer-reviewed journals and indexing and abstracts for more than 9,000 journals.
Tertiary sources are collections of interpretations (secondary sources). Like secondary sources, they may contain parts of primary sources but the purpose of a tertiary source is to give a broad overview of the scholarly conversations around a primary source. These are typically referred to as reference sources like dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, textbooks, handbooks, literature reviews, etc.
Use tertiary sources to start your research.
While the databases listed below can be used to find tertiary sources for a variety of topics, some disciplines have specific books or databases. See a subject guide for more resources.
More than 200 dictionaries, encyclopedias, language reference and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. In addition to text, some sources include maps, illustrations, and Web links. Users can search one resource, a group of selected resources, or all of them at once. Regularly updated.
This subscription is limited to five simultaneous users. Please log out when finished.
Included in this database are the following titles:
Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
The Oxford Classical Dictionary
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation
Full-text online from over 400 encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books. Search a topic, build a concept map, or browse information sources organized by subject. Find text, images, sound files, sortable data tables and more.
Created by Jackie Stapleton, Liaison Librarian, University of Waterloo; Adapted by Aneta Kwak, Mikayla Redden, Jeff Newman, Liaison Librarians, University of Toronto; Modified by Dylan McGlothlin, Humanities Librarian, Western Michigan University
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
What we typically think of in academic research: books, journal articles, conference presentations, etc., created by scholars, researchers, and students for each other.
Most sources from academic voices have undergone a process called peer review, where 2 or more experts in the field evaluate the research questions, methodology, findings, conclusions, sources, etc., for quality and originality.
Look to see if there are any conflicts of interest or funding statements.
Magazine and newspaper articles, and videos and social media posts created by international, national, local, regional, or topic-based news networks. These are written by writers and journalists for the general public.
There are many different tools available to evaluate news sources, each with its own strategy for determining bias. Here are a few to check out:
*Bias charts only show the average bias leanings of all the articles, posts, videos, etc. of a news source. They can be helpful to get an idea of how to evaluate a specific article, but the bias will depend on the author and type of article, as well as the news source that published it. For example, letters to the editor, opinion, and guest articles include more of the writer's thoughts and judgments rather than factual statements. The article type may be stated next to the title of the article or the author's name, which could be at the beginning or end of the article.
The voices of those who are being researched; individuals directly affected by your topic.
*Some NGOs are created by and for community members.
Because the goal of finding community voices on your topic is to hear from those directly affected by your equity issue, the main evaluation question to ask of these sources is: Does the person have the identity or experience to be considered a community member?
Non-government organizations (NGOs) are non-profit organizations that operate independently from any government, though they may work alongside government organizations and advocate for policy changes. For example, the American Red Cross, an NGO, often collaborates with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on disaster relief. NGOs often have a humanitarian, social, or environmental focus. As an organization separate from a government, they can be very focused in their work, collecting and publishing data about the needs of the populations they serve and how their work fulfills those needs.
To simplify the categorization of voice types within the Research Honeycomb, for-profit organizations, like businesses and corporations, are included in this voice type. Though they are also a non-government organization, the label of NGO is typically only used for non-profit organizations. Businesses need data to develop products tailored to their customer base. Some of that information is made public.
*Some NGOs are created by and for community members.
Both types of organizations have reasons for sharing the information they collect: non-profit NGOs want to expand support for a community and convince donors that their work is worthy of financial support, and for-profit businesses want to sell their product and assure shareholders that they have made a good investment. Because of this, the information they publish is presented in a way that supports these goals. This doesn't mean you should avoid using this information in your research. Oftentimes, they are the only ones who publish that specific information because they are the only organizations interested in it! Just consider their data collection methods and how language and data visualizations are being used to support the goals of an organization in your evaluation of the information.
Goals: What is their mission and vision statement? What is their goal? If it's vague, what is implied by the language they use in those statements in the context of the rest of their website? This can be found on their About page, linked at the very top or very bottom of a website.
Who: Who makes up this organization? Is there information about membership or a board of directors? If an organization serves a specific community, are any members of that community involved in leadership? Is there information on who funds their work or who owns the company? This information is on their About, Contact, or Directory page.
Data: Look for a Resources list. How was their data collected? Are they making logical assumptions from that data? If there are any links to other information sources, do they lead to other organizations or stay within that organization's website? Look for information gaps. For example, does a survey of how long it takes Americans to commute to work consider those who use public transportation and rideshares, or only those who own their vehicles?
Outside Views: What do other websites say about this organization? Are there any notable news articles about them? One of the simplest ways to do this is to search the NGO title in Google and browse the News tab.
Information by a local, national, domestic or foreign government.
Stakeholder: an individual or group indirectly affected by the equity issue you are studying.
Ally: an individual or group with similar goals to those who are affected by the equity issue but are not community members.
Check out the other voice types for tips on how to evaluate them.
Topic: What is being researched.
Academic Voices: What we typically think of in academic research. Books, journal articles, conference presentations, etc.
News Media: International, national, local, regional, or topic-based news sources.
Community Voices: The voices of those who are being researched. Social media, blogs, YouTube, etc.
Association and Organization Reports: Information created by non-government organizations.
Government Reports: Information created by government organizations/agencies.
Stakeholders and Allies: Information by those who are not directly related to your topic but may be indirectly related socially, financially, regionally, etc.