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Where to Start Your Research

Types of Resources

Resource materials comes in many different types and formats and your needs will determine what resources you should use.  Knowing how to evaluate all types of resources is important to ensure that you are only using what meets the requirements of your project. 

For example, if you are writing a history paper that requires you to use scholarly journal articles and books, but you cite information from Wikipedia articles only, you will not be meeting the requirements of the project.

However, there are times when you may need to use magazine or news sources, such as, if you are writing a speech about politicians in the media.  This project would require many sources from newspapers, websites, social media, etc.

In any case, it's helpful to be familiar with the information timeline below:


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