To locate shorter sources, such as magazine and journal articles, you will need to use an online database. CNM’s library website holds a large online database you can use to begin your research.

Your sources will include both primary sources and secondary sources. As you conduct research, you will want to take detailed, careful notes about your discoveries. These notes will help trigger your memory about each article’s key ideas and your initial response to the information when you return to your sources during the writing process. As you read each source, take a minute to evaluate the reliability of each source you find.

Your topic and purpose determine whether you must cite both primary and secondary sources in your paper. Ask yourself which sources are most likely to provide answers your research questions. If you are writing a research paper about reality television shows, you will need to use some reality shows as a primary source, but secondary sources, such as a reviewer’s critique, are also important. If you are writing about the health effects of nicotine, you will probably want to read the published results of scientific studies, but secondary sources, such as magazine or journal articles discussing the outcome of a recent study, may also be helpful.

Secondary sources discuss, interpret, analyze, consolidate, or otherwise rework information from primary sources. In researching a paper about the First Amendment, you might read articles about legal cases that involved First Amendment rights or editorials expressing commentary on the First Amendment. These sources would be considered secondary sources because they are one step removed from the primary source of information. The following are examples of secondary sources: Magazine articles Biographical books Literary and scientific reviews Television documentaries

Writers classify research resources in two categories: primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources are direct, firsthand sources of information or data. For example, if you were writing a paper about the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, the text of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights would be a primary source. Other primary sources include the following: Research Articles Literary Texts Historical documents such as diaries or letters Autobiographies or other personal accounts Podcasts