Finding Sources

General Guidelines

1) Use primary sources whenever possible. For example, if an author references another author's work (see below example), try to find that original source. This increases your ethos (credibility/believability as an author yourself) and provides you with the most accurate information available.

*Ex. Lynne Cox, in her narrative account "Swimming to Antarctica," claims that cold water swimming feels like moving through cooled motor oil.

-Try to find Cox's narrative "Swimming to Antarctica" rather than relying on a secondary author to relay the information.

2) When looking for information on the Internet, use information that has a named author and a date for the information's publication. The author's actual name (not baseball_bob28) should appear on the article. Again, this increases your ethos and means that the information is more likely factual and useful.

3) Use a variety of sources. Any writing is ultimately persuasive writing, and the most effective persuasive writing isn't biased, meaning that it doesn't rely only on information from only one perspective. For example, if you are writing about abortion with a pro-life claim, don't ignore the pro-choice information. Rather, address the points that the other side raises and provide appropriate and supported counter-claims. This will once again bolster your ethos and logos (appeal to an audience's reasoning) as you reason through claims on both sides effectively and with evidence.

4) Pay attention to dates of publication. Information can become outdated and ultimately obsolete; therefore, it is always better to use more recent information (published within the last 5 years) whenever possible. This is especially important for argumentative writing.

5) When using information from the Internet, URLs ending with .net, .org, .edu, and .gov are going to be more credible than those that end with .com. This doesn't mean that .com information is not useful and cannot be used; it simply means do your background research on the information. Is there an author and date of publication? Is the information put forth by a company with a sales agenda?

6) Peer-reviewed articles from journals are the most credible sources to use in any researched writing. These articles have to go through a thorough process of review by experts in the field. They have also been written by experts in the field, typically people holding graduate degrees in their discipline. This means the information is very valuable to you as an amateur writer at this point in your academic career as using these types of articles, found on databases like Ebscohost, will increase your own ethos as an author. Think of it like "borrowing" the expert author's credibility: "You don't have to take my word for it; look at what this expert says."

*See below video overviews!