CNX 100 - Information Literacy Guide

Different types of sources have different uses and include different perspectives. You need to know what type of source you are looking at to determine the kind of evidence that will be included in the source. 

Video from Utah State University Libraries. 

• Source Type	Timing	Purpose	Characteristics	Authors	Where to Find
  Social Media	Seconds, Minutes	Immediacy.  Breaks the story.	Unedited.  Information may be incomplete, false, or biased	Anyone	Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok
  Newspapers	Hours, Day	Excellent for current information, useful for local information. Useful for historical research.	Current events.  Does not use technical language.	Professional Journalists	Databases: Newspaper Source, U.S. Major Dailies,  Nexis Uni,
  Magazines	Days, Weeks	An overview of your topic, as well as information on popular culture and current events.	Colorful, entertaining.   Contain ads. may be found on news stands. Usually cover current topics.	Professional Journalists	Databases:  Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete
  Conference Proceedings	Weeks, Months	Research in progress. Scholarly articles written by the same authors may be published at a later date.	Academic or field-specific terminology used.  Presents new research.	Specialists in the Field, Scholars	Google Scholar, Professional Association's Websites
  Scholarly Journal Articles	Months, Year/s	Presentation of the latest research in a field. Typically this includes a deep dive into a particular aspect of a topic.	Written in technical discipline-specific. Is rarely shorter than 10 pages.  Includes data, tables, charts, a bibliography, and when presenting research, an introduction, methods section, results, discussion, and conclusions.	Specialists in the Field, Scholars	Start with Academic Search Complete, Explore other databases by subject
  Books	Year/s	Overview of topic, in-depth coverage of the topic.  Check the book's index and table of contents to locate information relevant to your topic.	Lengthy; may be an in-depth fully developed argument, or may be an edited collection of authored articles.  May be published by a general publisher (HarperCollins) or by an academic press (in which case they would be called a monograph).	Specialists, Journalists, Scholars	From OWU and the Ohio Five in Consort, From across Ohio in OhioLINK, Nationwide through Interlibrary loan
  Encyclopedias or Reference Sources	Years	Topic ideas, an overview of the topic, background information, quick facts.  Check their bibliographies to identify additional core sources of information.	Articles are often compilations from many contributors. Authoritative and concise information sources.  They provide comprehensive background information on a topic.	Specialists, Scholars	Wikipedia, Databases: Credo, Gale  Ebooks,  Oxford Research Encylcopedias
  Government Documents	Year/s	Statistics, an overview of the topic, quick facts, in-depth analysis, and research reports.	Government documents may be found in many forms:  they are books, pamphlets, or other materials published by a federal, state, or local government agency.	Government Agency Staff, Researchers	Govinfo.gov, Congressional Publications
  Webpages	Seconds, Minutes, Months, Years	Topic ideas, an overview of topic, opinions, information from organizations and commercial businesses.	Wide variety of source types. Offers many perspectives. Evaluate sources carefully as many are not  fact-checked.	Anyone	Google

  Inspired by Lebanon Vally College's FYE 112 Guide.