Research Paper: A step-by-step guide: 8. Evaluating Sources.
If your college instructor has asked you to write a research paper, Google is not your friend. A reference librarian is specially trained to help patrons find the best sources. An Internet search engine, on the other hand, will show you plenty of sources that will waste your time.
Evaluating Research Sources from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) You can use the Internet for ideas for initial topic development and to fill in gaps in your research once you've used library sources. Just be sure to carefully scrutinize anything you find on the Internet to ensure it's appropriate to cite it in your paper.
Your instructor may require specific sources (e.g. a minimum of 3 scholarly journals, 1 book, and 1 newspaper) or may not accept particular sources, such as Wikipedia, Web resources, etc. Sometimes, your instructor may require that you use primary sources for your research. Make sure the sources you use meet your instructor's requirements.
The research paper requires close reading of complex text from multiple sources, which students must comprehend, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. These tasks, more sophisticated than merely summarizing an article for a report, reflect the complex work demands of college and career.
Cite sources carefully. Your professor may allow parenthetical citations in a short paper with one or two sources, but you should use footnotes for any research paper in history. Parenthetical citations are unaesthetic; they scar the text and break the flow of reading. Worse still.
Help Writing Research Paper: Custom Research Writing Service. especially on the sources one uses. The type, age, and validity of the sources matter a lot. Students may not pick appropriate sources on their own. Choosing accurate information. We believe students should enjoy their college life. Since research papers and other academic.
The premise of this question - that scholarly sources are “more important” - is incorrect. There are two things that matter for sources: 1. Credibility with respect to the information they provide 2. Acknowledging the ideas that you are building o.