that will determine what claims or conclusions you can make as a result of your research.

Most of us look for information to answer questions every day, and we often act on the answers to those questions.

It will also be extremely valuable when it comes to using the resources you end up needing.

reading will help you learn the terms used by professionals and scholars who have studied your narrower topic. Those terms are certain to be helpful when you’re looking for sources later, so jot them down or otherwise remember them.

A research question defines exactly what you are trying to find out. It will influence most of the steps you take to conduct the research.

defining exactly what the researcher is trying to find out

in such a course, actually making a plan for the kinds you need will save you time as you search for sources.

The result is that the sources that are created toward the end of the information lifecycle may come to very different conclusions about an event than did those sources created early on.

Scholarly Sources – Scholarly journal articles (such as those published in the Journal of Plant Science and Education and Child Psychology) are meant for scholars and students in a particular field of study. While they can also be read by members of the general public who have an interest in the topic, since they are written by experts, they often assume that the reader will already have a significant amount of existing knowledge on the topic. The authors may use discipline-specific terminology or reference developments or events that may be unfamiliar to those who do not have experience in the field. As a result, they can sometimes be challenging to understand for those who do not have a background in the field. Researchers and scholars write these articles to present new knowledge and further understanding of their field of study.

Popular Sources – These sources, such as books, TV shows, newspaper and magazine articles, podcasts, social media, and most websites, are meant for a large general audience and are generally easy to purchase or available for free. Their subjects include news, politics, government, health, music, art, hobbies, what to buy, entertainment, and opinions about the news—anything, really, that we could be interested in.

(It is a myth that domains of a URL indicate anything about credibility.)

list of trustworthy sources.

Give it an A (very acceptable), B (good, but could be better), C (OK in a pinch), D (marginal), or E (unacceptable)

if you have not considered what others have written about your source and its author and publisher, you have not evaluated its credibility.

Relevant sources are those that pertain to your research question.