ENG 592 Graduate Proseminar II

When searching – in “Everything,” “The Catalog,” or in individual databases – your results will be comprised of scholarship and other works in various formats.

Some sources are better suited for the types of information you are looking for.

Some sources will carry more scholarly weight and importance than others. 

Some sources are academic/scholarly/empirical/peer reviewed; others are not, even if they are published in journals that employ peer review practices.

Books: When using books for your research, take note: in many/most cases, you will not use the entire contents of a book. Typically, a chapter or two, and maybe the introduction, will suffice. See Reputable Publishers & Presses for information about evaluating different types of books. 

Chapters: Sometimes the only part of book that, despite its overall relevance to your research, is the only useful part.

Articles: Know the difference between scholarly/empirical/peer reviewed articles, and popular sources (e.g., magazine and newspaper articles). Most research relies on, and requires the use of, scholarly/peer reviewed research, but your particular project might also allow for the use of popular sources. 

Essays: You can find these in scholarly and popular publications (if published in peer reviewed journals, they are usually only reviewed by the editors, and are not actually peer reviewed). Essays can be smart, insightful, critical, but, depending on who is writing them, and how they are written, can be biased and based less on evidence (other scholarship) and more on feeling.

Encyclopedias, specialized dictionaries, and other reference books: These are tertiary sources that provide condensed biographical, historical, and topical information. Think Wikipedia, OED, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. If you are using one of these resources to provide biographical or other basic information, cite only from reliable/scholarly sources. These sources should be used sparingly, if at all.

Reviews: Reviews of scholarly materials such as books are not themselves scholarly. They are short, insightful descriptions of the books: the main themes, how they do or do not add to previous scholarship, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. They are primarily used to identify books one would use as sources themselves.