MCM 151 - Saidel

Understanding the different types of sources

There are many different types of information sources available to you.  They range from formal (books and peer-reviewed articles) to informal (social media posts, blog posts, interviews with authors).  Both formal and informal resources can be good sources of information.  But you will always need to check your sources for credibility, relevancy to your question, and whether or not the sources meet any assignment requirements that you have.  For more on Credibility check out the Evaluating Information Tab in this guide.

Understanding different types of sources and where to find them 

List

• Scholarly or academic sources - Any work written by a person with experience in the field being written about.  They don't need to have a higher degree in that field, but they should have experience in the topic they are covering.
  • "Peer-Reviewed" articles are a subset of scholarly articles.  An author will send their article to an academic journal and the journal will ask a group of volunteer experts in the field to check the article for validity, quality and originality.  If your assignment requires you to find peer-reviewed journals, you should consider using the "peer-review" filter in the database you are researching.
  • You will find academic journal articles in the databases listed in this guide.
• Trade Publications - Trade publications are magazines, websites, video channels, or social media sites that are written by people working in a particular media industry.  So, for example, Variety magazine (and websites) is written by people who work in the film industry.  For some trade publications the audience for the magazine is other people working in the same field.   Trade publications are considered to be fairly credible sources of information because they are written by people with expertise in their field.
  • Your instructor has compiled a list of helpful trade publications you can use as resources, check the finding resources tab on this page for a list and some links
• Newspapers - Newspapers are physical media, websites, and social media sites dedicated to reporting on immediate events.  They include reporting on general events, politics, culture, and local stories.  Newspapers publish daily or weekly, so they are one of the better sources to look at for really recent topics.
  • Check the Newspapers tab in this guide to see a list of newspapers you can access for free as a Menlo College student.  Other newspapers can be found with google searches.
• Reference Information - Reference information is helpful background information that can give you quick access to the history or an overview of a topic.  This can include things like Encyclopedias (for example this guide to Japanese Films) , Overview websites, or databases of academic reference and background information.  These reference works can be quick ways to get context or history about a topic.
  • Check the Background Information tab of this guide
• Popular Sources - This category includes all sorts of media about subjects that are written by and for everyone, not just by and for experts.  These types of sources can include both fiction (like fan-fic sites) or non-fiction (BookTok is one example).  They include content like: reviews of film, television, books, and music; opinion posts, debate threads, popular magazines and books, websites, and social media.  You can find many different viewpoints and experiences of media in these sites.
  • You can find recommended lists of popular media curated by your instructor in the Syllabus Extras and Representations of Media tabs of this guide.