The first step to writing a great research paper is to find credible sources for the assignment.
While the internet can give you instant access to a lot of information to use in your writing, your sources won’t make for a comprehensive research paper if they’re not credible enough.
As such, it’s important to spend some time and learn how to find credible sources before you start writing your research paper.
The right places to find credible sources for your research paper include academic search engines, digital databases and libraries, scholarly sources, and your local libraries. You can also use Wikipedia but only as a jumping off point. These sources can help you find authentic information on any area that you would like to explore in your research.
To make sure you get the concept of searching for credible source for your next research paper right, let’s expand on this subject even further below.
How to Find Credible Sources for Research Paper
It’s important to understand that there’s no one single source that’s best for all kinds of research. As such, academic writing requires you to be a bit more vigilant about where you get your information.
In other words, you need to know the right places to find credible sources and then utilize them to get the most out of the time you spend doing your research.
1. Use Academic Search Engines
Students love to use the internet to find information to use in their research paper writing.
However, the problem with this approach is that search engines don’t always return credible results in the first place.
Apparently, search engines aren’t smart enough yet to determine whether a certain piece of information or publication is authentic enough for academic research writing.
From our research and hands on testing, we’ve found the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex, to be somewhat unreliable in outputting scholarly information. So we don’t recommend wholly relying on them for information.
You should consult academic search engines instead. Some of the best academic search engines that we recommend include, but not limited to, the following:
- Google Scholar: Instead of using the usual Google search engine to find sources for your research paper, take advantage of Google Scholar. It gives you access to thousands of relevant academic journals.
- BASE: BASE gives you access to over 100 million documents, which we strongly believe is more than enough for a research paper. With its advanced option feature, you can narrow down your research to what’s more relevant to your research question.
- Refseek: What we love about Refseek is that it’s specifically for researchers and students. With Refseek, you get access to over a billion journals, books, documents, and newspapers.
2. Digital Library and Databases
Digital database and libraries give you access to millions of journals, audio books, videos, and books that provide information in any field of study.
The best thing about digital libraries and databases is that you can access them any time, on any device, and from anywhere you’re in the world.
Some libraries even allow you to download content for offline reading so you can save the information you find valuable for later reference.
Of course, you can’t be so certain that your university has access to all online databases.
So in the event that you have found a journal article that would make a credible source for your research paper but you can’t get access, ask your professor to share a PDF file of the document with you.
3. Use Your Local Library
We live in the age where you can access information right from where you are. As impressive and convenient as the internet can be, it doesn’t eliminate the value of your local library. With hundreds of books on all subjects under the sun, school and public libraries are no doubt a treasure-trove.
Public and school libraries will give you access to newspapers, magazines, journals, and peer-reviewed articles by authors, journalists, and researchers. You may have to pay a subscription fee to access a public library, but that’s usually less than $1 a day.
In addition to giving you access to incredibly useful sources that you can use for your research paper, libraries has staff that can help you find more information in case you ever feel lost. All you have to do is ask.
4. Use Wikipedia
Does it seem strange to use Wikipedia when we already know you shouldn’t even think about using it in the first place?
We don’t think so.
While you shouldn’t be using Wikipedia exclusively for your academic research, mostly because it allows contributions from multiple authors and editors, it can make a great starting point that helps you get a clear overview of your research topic.
As much as we don’t consider Wikipedia to be a credible source of information, it can at last give you a clear background about the research question that you wish to explore.
If you scroll to the bottom of each article published on Wikipedia, you will find a list of citations and sources, which are golden in helping you to find valuable sources to use in your research paper later in the writing stage.
Our Final Thoughts on Finding Credible Sources for Your Research Paper
Technology is dynamic and the information we access on the web changes so quickly that some sources go out of date fast.
As such, it’s important to look into the relevance and application of the information you have found online – even if it comes from a credible and trusted author.
The goal here is to make sure you write a research paper that not only include credible information from trustworthy sources, but also one that gives dependable, timely, and accurate information to your audience.
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We’ve given you the exact process we use to find credible information for any type of research paper.
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