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LANG 1403 Online Workshop & Guide

This module should take about 1 hour & then a short quiz. Learn & Enjoy!

Types of Information Sources (Resource Types)

Read through the chart below and think about:

  • How information source types differ
  • What you have used in the past as a secondary student
  • How as a university student, you will need to change the types of sources you use for scholarly (academic) purposes
Types of Information Sources

There are different types of information sources, don't just use easily accessible information sources from general web search, choose quality and relevant sources suitable for your need.

Periodicals as Information Sources

Periodicals are published at regular time periods:  daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly

  • They include journals, magazines and newspapers.
    • Newspapers and Magazines usually contain short general interest articles. They are mostly popular and easy to understand.
    • Academic/Scholarly Journals publish in-depth academic, scholarly research papers (articles).
  • Each periodical issue consists of a collection of articles.
  • In section 7, you'll  learn more about which databases to use for good articles
Characteristics Academic Journal

Magazine

Times Magazine

Newspaper

new york times front page

Examples Diliello, T. C., Houghton, J. D., & Dawley, D. (2011). Narrowing the creativity gap: The moderating effects of perceived support for creativity. Journal of Psychology, 145(3), 151-172. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2010.548412 Now you see them. (2014, April 5). The Economist, 411, 64. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2014/04/05/now-you-see-them Manjoo, F. (2014, June 18). Amazon fire phone's missed opportunities. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/
technology/personaltech/amazon-fire-phones-missed-opportunities.html
Author(s)

Academics (university professors), researchers, scholars. 

Qualifications or credentials of the authors usually appear near the names or in the footnote/endnote.

Example: Ip, Nancy Y. Y.

Reporters/journalists, freelance writers, general public.

Example: Tara Law

Reporters/journalists, freelance writers, general public.

Example: Matthew Luxmoore

Publisher

Professional societies, university press, commercial publishers, e.g., IEEE, Cambridge University Press,  The Royal Society of Chemistry, etc.

Commercial publishers, e.g., Time, Inc. Commercial publishers, e.g., Dow Jones & Co
Content Scope In-depth research in a specialized subject area Topics/stories of general interest Usually current affairs, daily news, social issues
Article Structure

Article title, authors and their qualifications and affiliations.

  1. Abstract (article summary) 
  2. Keywords (research focus areas)
  3. Introduction/Background
  4. Literature review (what has been done before)
  5. Methodology (how did the authors carry out the investigation or experiment)
  6. Findings & Conclusion
  7. References/Bibliography
Article title, authors often listed Headline,  reporting location, authors are often named but other times, just an agency listed, e.g. Reuiters, XinHua, Ahence France Presse ([AFP], etc.
Quality Control

Contents are peer-reviewed (revised according to comments from subject experts in the field before publication).

May publish errata (list of errors with corrections) in later journal issues if mistakes were found.

Articles may even be "retracted" due to serious research misconduct such as falsification of data/results, fabrication of data/results.

Contents approved by editors Contents approved by editors
Reference / Bibliography

Arguments, claims and conclusions are always supported by evidence, such as experiment data, survey results, previous research findings.

Sources consulted are listed in the end of paper reference/bibliography section.

May quote data from other other sources to support writing.

Reference list/bibliography is usually not included.

May quote data from other other sources to support writing.

Reference list/bibliography is usually not included.

Video on Information Types (2 min) (opitonal)

Watch the video.

Start to think about what type of information you need to use in Y1 (it's different from secondary school).

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