Choose relevant sources

When you're searching a database for sources, you might retrieve hundreds of results – or even thousands. When you glance over your first page of results, you might see a lot that are relevant to your topic. So, how do you choose the best sources? That is, how can you tell which sources will be the most useful, relevant, and appropriate?

Start by considering how well a source relates to your topic.

To choose sources from your database results, look at the titles of the sources on the first page or two of your results, and think about whether some titles seem more relevant to your topic than others.

Choosing relevant sources is much easier if your research topic is posed as a question or hypothesis for which you need to find sources that will supply answers or evidence. That's partly why the section of this tutorial on Choosing a topic encourages you to phrase your topic in the form of a question or hypothesis. (Another reason is that when your topic is stated as a question or hypothesis, it's easier to write an interesting paper.)

It's also easier to choose sources if your topic is not too broad. Let's take a look at why that is. Suppose your research topic is maritime piracy. Scroll down a bit and look at the results from Quick Search shown below on the left. They ALL look relevant, don't they? If you went to page 2, 3, and 4 of your results, you'd probably continue to see relevant stuff. So, you've got many pages of relevant results, and choosing what to use for your paper becomes a random, meaningless process because all these results are equally relevant to the topic of maritime piracy.

However, when your research topic is a narrower question or hypothesis, then your topic itself can guide you to the best sources to choose among your results. So, suppose you rephrased your topic to:

What strategies and policies would reduce incidents of maritime piracy?

Now look at the results again. Only some of them look like they might help answer that question – as you see below, on the right.

SEARCH TOPIC THAT'S TOO BROAD: maritime piracy

Notice how all the results below look equally good? That presents a problem because choosing results will be a random and meaningless process. Uggh.

Article Result 1. Maritime Piracy Article Result 2. An Economic Analysis of Maritime Piracy and its Control Article Result 3. The Changing Nature of Contemporary Maritiime Piracy Article Result 4. Maritime piracy: how can international law and policy address this growing global menace? Article Result 5. Piracy and martime crime: historical and modern case studies

SEARCH TOPIC THAT'S JUST RIGHT: What strategies and policies would reduce incidents of maritime piracy?

Now do you see how only some results look like they would address how to reduce incidents of maritime piracy? See how this narrower topic makes choosing easier?

Article Result 2. An Economic Analysis of Maritime Piracy and its Control Article Result 4. Maritime piracy: how can international law and policy address this growing global menace?

When you scan over titles in your results, if you can't tell from the title whether the source is likely to be relevant, then click on it to bring up the full record for the source. The full record usually includes a longer description (or abstract) of what the source is about.

Reading more about the source might help you decide whether it's likely to be useful or not. If it doesn't look useful, move on to the next title and examine it, and so on.

QUESTION 1. For which TWO topics below will there be so many relevant sources that choosing among them will be rather random and meaningless?

A. Greek mythology

B. Did Greek mythology teach moral lessons and if so, how?

D. What social programs are effective at preventing recidivism among released prisoners?

E. Recidivism of released prisoners

(Answer at bottom of page.)

Also, make sure the sources you use meet your assignment's source requirements.

Before settling on a source, make sure you know whether your assignment restricts you to using certain types of sources. If a source that you want to use is not one you are allowed to use, well...then...you shouldn't use it.

If you need help understanding source requirements, consult Lesson 2 and Lesson 3. But, make sure you know how YOUR instructor defines sources and source qualities; their definitions might differ from the definitions found in this tutorial!

QUESTION 2. Pick the TWO correct statements below:

A. As long as your sources are credible, they should meet the source requirements for any assignment you get in college.

B. It's important to choose sources that meet your assignment's source requirements.

C. If you are supposed to use certain types of sources for an assignment, make sure you know how your instructor defines those sources.

D. Wait until the night before your assignment is due to choose sources; waiting until the last minute makes you feel so alive!

(Answer at bottom of page.)

After you've identified a source that looks promising, you'll need to get the full-text of it. Why? Because in most databases, your results are just records that represent sources. To get to the actual source, you'll need to look for any links that seem like they might lead you to the full-text of the source. Since getting to full-text works differently in each database, and is confusing and glitchy, the next part of this lesson explains the "Get it" process in more detail.

Wait! Wait! Wait! What if you can't find ANY sources that look promising?

Then you may need to choose a different topic, brush-up on your keyword searching skills, try a different database, or consult with a librarian.

What's next?

Learn how to GET THE SOURCES YOU'VE CHOSEN.

Answers to questions on this page:Question 1: A and EQuestion 2. B and C

Report abuse