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Hello! This video will give you information about what to look for
when selecting sources for your annotated bibliography and research paper assignments
In our last video we discussed four different types of sources
books, peer-reviewed articles from academic journals,
web sources, and popular articles from magazines and newspapers.
These sources fall into two categories: peer-reviewed or scholarly
and popular. You may have heard these terms before
but let's break it down to see what they mean in this context.
Popular sources are written are created for the general public.
Popular sources could include magazines web sites and newspapers.
They're usually pretty easy to read and don't use technical terms
and probably don't have citations or bibliographies
Academic sources can include books written by scholars or experts in the field
as well scholarly articles published in academic journals
these sources are generally associated with an academic institution
such as a University. The language used
might be technical in nature. There are a few tips you can use to determine if a
source is academic not. Ask yourself:
are there citations? who is the author?
and if you are looking at an article does it have an abstract?
an abstract will be at the beginning of the paper and will summarize the information
that the article covers.
In writing your bibliography, you'll be using both academic
and popular sources. Make sure that all of these sources relate to your topic.
Even if Sam finds a great academic article on vegetarianism,
if its focus is on obesity rather than the environment it would not make sense to
include in his annotated bibliography
Now we'll talk about what to look for when finding each type of source.
Let's start with books.
Sam will look for books on the Dominican library website.
Books will give Sam a broad overview his topic.
Often books have been more carefully reviewed and edited some other sources.
In order to make sure the book that you're looking at is a good fit for your topic
take a look at the following areas of the book: the table of contents
the index and the bibliography.
Do you see keywords or ideas that relate to your topic in these areas?
Do see chapters that you think would be a good fit for your topic? If so
the book is likely to be a good source. Now let's move on to scholarly
or peer review journal articles Sam will find these by using a library database
such as Academic Search complete. These articles give Sam
more detailed and current information on this topic. In order to make sure that an
article is a good fit for your topic
take a look at the following areas: the abstract
the introduction, citations at the end of the article
and when it was written. If Sam finds information on this topic in the abstract
as well as the introduction to the article, it's probably good article for
him to use in his bibliography
Sam want to make sure that you can understand the articles that he has selected
some articles are written for scientists or other scholars
and won't be very useful for Sam's assignment. Sam will also want to pay
close attention
to the date the article was written.
Your instructor will indicate what date range they want you to use
Sams instructor has told him to only use articles written in the last five years.
Magazines and newspapers can be helpful for finding out about current events
or more recent information on topic. Sam must find these using the library databases.
When looking at a magazine or newspaper, just like all the other sources we talked about
please keep the following in mind: who is the author of the article?
Is this person a well-regarded journalists? Where do they get their information?
Are their sources reliable? Does the title of the article or publication indicate a bias?
For example, Sam wouldn't want to use an article written
in a magazine called "Being a Vegetarian Rocks"
because the source appears to be pretty biased.
Websites can be a good source for information; however it's very important to check websites for accuracy
and credibility before using them in your annotated bibliography.
In order to use a web source for this project Sam want to be able to answer
the following questions about it:
how recently was website updated? Does the website contain information that
needs to be updated regularly?
Is the website reliable? Are there sources cited on the page?
If so, what kinda sources? Do the links on the page work?
The author, can you determine what group or person created the web page?
If so, who are they? Are they an expert on the topic?
or do they have a biased opinion?
and finally what purpose does the website serve? Again there are a wide variety of
websites available, so please be sure to evaluate the website in order to ensure that
it is credible.
You should now have a good idea how to find appropriate sources for your assignment.
If you have any questions about the assignment
please feel free to ask a librarian. We're available at the reference desk in the library
by chat through the library website or by email. Thanks for watching!