Student's guide to writing college papers, Fourth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2010
Knowing what kinds of sources you need
Finding useful sources
Writing your paper
4.1 Knowing What Kinds of Sources You Need
4.1.1 Consult Primary Sources for Evidence
4.1.2 Read Secondary Sources to Learn about Your Topic
4.1.3 Read Tertiary Sources for Introductory Overviews
4.2 Record Citation Information Fully and Accurately
4.2.1 Determine Your Citation Style
4.2.2 Record Bibliographic Data
4.3 Search for Sources Systematically
4.3.1 Talk to Reference Librarians
4.3.2 Skim Specialized Reference Works
4.3.3 Search Your Library Catalog
4.3.4 Search Guides to Periodical Literature
4.3.5 Follow Bibliographical Trails
4.3.6 Browse the Shelves
4.4 Evaluate Sources for Relevance and Reliability
4.4.1 Evaluate the Relevance of Sources
4.4.2 Evaluate the Reliability of Your Sources
You are ready for the main thrust of your research only after you have at least a research question and a tentative guess at an answer. Better would be a story-board with an answer you trust enough to be a working hypothesis and a few supporting reasons. With that, you are prepared to look for data to back up your reasons and test your answer. In this chapter, we show you how to locate sources that will provide those data; in the next, we show you how to work with them. But don't think that those are separate steps: first you find all your sources, and then you read them and take notes. Once you find one good source, it will lead you to others. As you fill your storyboard with notes, you'll think of new questions that will send you looking for new sources. So while we discuss finding and using sources as two steps, you'll more often do them together.
Plan to do your reading in three phases. First, read just to learn enough to know what to look for. This phase won't be very systematic; for most of you, it will depend on what online search engines turn up. Second, read to get an overview of your topic and question. This reading will be mostly in reference works like encyclopedias. Third, search out the specific sources that you will use in developing your argument. For this phase, you'll need a careful plan.
4.1 Knowing what kinds of sources you need
The first thought of beginning researchers is often not What am I looking for? but Where do I look? And what they mean is Which websites should I check? So they fire up a search engine and get started. But that only makes sense if you believe that all you have to do is find information to fill pages—which is, of course, the wrong picture of research. It's better to think that your goal is to find just that factual information that you can use as evidence to support your reasons, which support your claim, which in turn answers a research question. If that's what you are doing, then you have to start not with the where but the what.
In fact, one of the most common complaints about new researchers is that they offer up as evidence the first (and only) bit of relevant data they find. They assume that all evidence is the same, no matter its source, and that one bit of evidence is enough. But every researcher—including students—is expected to consider not only relevant evidence, but the best available evidence, and in some cases all the available evidence. But to know what evidence you need, you must first know what counts as “available evidence”—which has two factors.
1. You need the appropriate kind of evidence: primary, secondary, or tertiary.
Think of the distinction in terms of how far you are from the first observation of the facts themselves. Primary sources offer firsthand evidence, reported by whoever first produced or collected the data. Secondary sources offer second-hand reports of what someone else reported in a primary source. Tertiary sources offer thirdhand reports of what others reported in secondary reports. (These aren't sharply defined categories, but they do characterize how researchers think about sources.)
In general, you are expected to get as close as you can to primary sources. Academic researchers, who have long deadlines, must use only primary sources unless a primary source is lost or completely unavailable. In business, where deadlines are often short, researchers are expected to use primary sources whenever they can and only the most reliable of secondary sources if they must.
2. You need the appropriate amount of evidence.
Academic researchers are expected to consider all the evidence that might be relevant to their claim—not just one letter in which Jefferson offers his opinion of Washington's character but all the available letters in which he even mentions him. Business researchers are expected to consider all the evidence that might change their claim significantly—interviews not just with one customer but with several of the most important ones.
Students, however, can't be held to the same standards as professionals. Students don't have as much time or resources for gathering data, and few students have ready access to a top-quality library. So find out your teacher's ground rules for evidence before you start. You, too, should get as close to the primary evidence as you can, but ask what you can do when primary evidence is hard to obtain. On which matters must you use primary evidence? When can you substitute secondhand reports from secondary sources? Will a tertiary source be acceptable if its author is a respected scholar?
Remember that evidence is not inert stuff you pour into your paper. It is part of the act of explaining to readers why they should accept your claim. Plan your search to find the kind and amount of evidence you will need to convince amiable but skeptical readers.
4.1.1 Consult Primary Sources for Evidence
In fields such as literary studies, the arts, and history, primary sources are original works: diaries, letters, manuscripts, images, films, film scripts, recordings, musical scores, and so on. They provide data in the form of words, images, and sounds that you use as evidence to support your reasons. In these fields, your teachers will usually expect you to work with primary sources. If, for example, you were writing on Alamo stories, you'd look for documents written at the time—letters, diaries, eyewitness reports, and so on.
In fields such as economics, psychology, sociology, and so on, most researchers collect their data through observation and experiment. The primary sources are the publications that first report those data, ranging from academic journals to government and commercial databases. You can find journal articles in your library's online catalog, but don't ignore databases, which you can access through search engines like Google's “U.S. Government Search” or Wolfram Alpha. If, for example, you want to support a claim about schools with what you think is the “fact” that dropout rates are higher in city schools than in suburban ones, a quick search would yield the actual numbers, which careful readers would expect you to cite.
4.1.2 Read Secondary Sources to Learn about Your Topic
Secondary sources are scholarly books and articles written by and for other researchers. They use data from primary sources as evidence to support a claim about them. A report analyzing Alamo stories, for example, would be a secondary source. Secondary sources also include specialized encyclopedias and dictionaries that offer essays written by scholars in a field. These sources are usually available only in college and university libraries.
You can use secondary sources in four ways:
1. To substitute for unavailable primary sources.
Secondary sources report data they found in primary sources. For example, a book on global warming will reproduce climate data from primary sources. To use those data, an advanced researcher would be required to find the primary source. If you can obtain the primary source easily, then you too should use it. If you cannot, your teacher will probably allow you to report the data from a secondary source. Be sure to ask.
CAUTION
Always Cite the Source You Consult
Some students think that when they use data reported in a secondary source they should cite the original, primary source. But they are only half right. If you cite just the primary source, you imply that you consulted that source yourself. If you cite just the secondary source, you imply that it is the ultimate source of your data. Both mislead readers. Instead, you should cite both sources. For example, if you use a secondary source written by Anderson for primary data in an article by Wong, your citation would look like this:
(Wong 1966, p. 45; quoted in Anderson 2005, p. 19)
2. To learn what others have written about your topic.
Secondary sources are the best way to learn what other researchers have said about your topic. By studying their arguments, you can add to your argument in two ways:
✵ You can learn the kinds of questions experts in the field think are important, not only from their research question but from any additional questions they mention at the end of articles. You may be able to model your question on theirs or even to use a question they mention but do not address.
✵ You can learn the standard views accepted by most people in the field. These can be useful for setting the context of your argument and for positions you can question.
3. To find models for your own writing and argument.
Use secondary sources to find out not just what others have written about your topic, but how they've written about it. You can then model your way of writing on theirs. If most of your sources use headings, charts, and lots of bullet points, then you might consider doing the same; if your sources never use them, you probably shouldn't. Notice things like the language (technical or ordinary?), paragraphs (long or short?), and how they use other sources (quotation or paraphrase?). Pay special attention to the kinds of evidence most of them use and the kinds of evidence they rarely or never use.
You can also use a secondary source as a model for your argument. For a paper on Alamo stories, you might find out how a source treats stories about Custer's Last Stand. Is its approach psychological, historical, political? Where does it find evidence? You cannot reuse its particular reasons or evidence, but you might support your answer with the same kinds of data and reasoning, perhaps even following the same organization. So if you come across a source that's not right on your topic but treats one like it, skim it to see what you can learn about how to argue your case. (You don't have to cite that source if you use only its logic, but you may cite it to give your own more authority.)
QUICK TIP
You may find secondary sources hard to read, because they are intended for advanced researchers. They assume a lot of background knowledge, and many aren't clearly written in the first place. If you're working on a topic new to you, don't start with secondary sources. Begin with an overview in a specialized encyclopedia or reliable tertiary source; then use what you learn there to tackle the secondary sources.
4. To find opposing points of view.
Your paper will be complete only when you imagine and respond to your readers' predictable questions and disagreements. You can find those views in secondary sources. What alternatives to your ideas do they offer? What evidence do they cite that you must acknowledge? Don't think that you weaken your case if you mention ideas contradicting your own. The truth is actually the opposite: When you acknowledge views that contradict yours, you show readers that you not only know and have considered those views but can respond to them (see 6.4).
More important, you can use those views to improve your own. You cannot understand what you think until you know why a rational person might think differently. So as you search for sources, look hard for those that support your views, but also be alert for those that contradict them.
4.1.3 Read Tertiary Sources for Introductory Overviews
Tertiary sources are based on secondary sources, usually written for non-specialists. These include general encyclopedias and dictionaries, as well as newspapers and magazines like Time and the Atlantic Monthly and commercial books written for a general audience. Well-edited general encyclopedias can give you a quick overview of many topics. Be cautious about using data you find in magazine and newspaper articles and especially cautious about tertiary sources on the web. Some describe the research in secondary sources reliably, but most oversimplify or, worse, mis-report it.