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HillCrest at UIOWA

Guide for non-UI students to virtually engage with the UI Libraries, learn searching techniques and how to evaluate information.

Using scholarly & popular sources

Engaging with Popular and Scholarly Sources

Popular sources, like newspapers or magazines can help us stay informed about current events and provide more information, such as keywords needed to search for scholarly sources. 

Scholarly sources, such as academic articles and journals are sources you would cite in bibliographies and references for your papers and projects.

When you engage with both popular and scholarly sources in your papers you are able to provide cohesive context on your topic. Using a combination of scholarly and popular sources also work to ground the claims you are making in your argument or thesis.

Comparing Popular & Scholarly sources

Infographic by Maggie Murphy & Jenny Dale at UNC-Greensboro University Libraries

Using Primary & Secondary Sources

Engaging with Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original documents or first hand accounts of an event that often come from a specific time period, like a newspaper article or a diary. Primary research consists of experiments, lab results, or a scientist's notes and documentation from observing an experiment. 

Secondary sources are documents or second hand accounts written about a specific event after it has happened, like a book or an article discussing or studying World War II or the sinking of the Titanic. Secondary sources are often a result from primary sources or primary research.

For some purposes, such as writing a paper it is useful to look at primary sources but oftentimes depending on your assignment instructions, secondary sources will be the only sources you may need. Of course, you will always want to check with your teacher first to confirm whether you will be using secondary sources or primary sources or a combination of both. 

Primary & Secondary Sources