USAFA Library Guides: English 111: Source Types

Source Types

Different types of sources can contain different types of information and an serve different purposes in your research. Anything can be a source; it is all in how you choose to use it. Below is a non-exhaustive list of types of sources that exsist.

Source types & Usefulness:

Scholarly Books/Monographs
Books provide a holistic and systematic review of a topic. The content is often written by experts and reviewed by editors. Since it takes 1-2 years to publish a book, be mindful of the timeliness of the content.
Newspaper & Magazine Articles
Newspaper or magazines are written so anyone can read the article and understand the information and context. They have more timely reports on incidents, issues and policies and would offer analysts’ opinions. The analysis may not be very in-depth and may only have limited reference to different perspectives.
Government Documents
Federal governments, especially the United States, are some of the largest producers of research. Much of the data, statistics and outcomes from that research is made publicly available on government websites and in reports.
Scholarly Articles
Scholarly articles tackle a narrower topic but would examine different views with a relatively objective stance. It may discuss the implications of the issue and provide suggestions based on rich evidences and arguments. It is often lengthy with references to many other sources.
Social Media
Social consists of a range of users that have a variety of perspectives. Social media is a good place to find firsthand accounts of events and people’s opinions. Social media accounts can be fake, be held by someone with a specific expertise, or be an official mode of communication for an organization.

Primary & Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary sources are the ground-level evidence. They

Provide direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, or person
Are usually written or created during or close to the event or time period being studied
Have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation
Can be written or non-written (e.g. sound recordings, photographs, artifacts)

Seconday Sources

Seconday sources are created from primary sources. They

Are second-hand accounts written after an event happened
Include comments on, interpretation of, or discussions about the original material