Categorizing Sources
Ohio State University Libraries Teaching & Learning and Heather VanDyne
Once you have your research question, you’ll need information sources to answer it and meet the other information needs of your research project.
This section about categorizing sources will increase your sophistication about them and save you time in the long run because you’ll understand the “big picture”. That big picture will be useful as you plan your own sources for a specific research project, which we’ll help you with in the section Sources and Information Needs.
There are typically several sources available to meet the information needs of your projects. In today’s complex information landscape, just about anything that contains information can be considered a potential source.
Here are a few examples:
- Books and encyclopedias
- Websites, web pages, and blogs
- Magazine, journal, and newspaper articles
- Research reports and conference papers
- Field notes and diaries
- Photographs, paintings, cartoons, and other artworks
- TV and radio programs, podcasts, movies, and videos
- Illuminated manuscripts and artifacts
- Bones, minerals, and fossils
- Preserved tissues and organs
- Architectural plans and maps
- Pamphlets and government documents
- Music scores and recorded performances
- Dance notation and theater set models
With so many sources available, a lack of sources can be an issue depending on the topic or question. It is best to ask yourself, “which ones will best meet my information needs?”
Categorizing a source helps you understand the type of information it contains. This helps determine whether it might meet one or more of your information needs, where to find that source, and where to find similar sources.
A source can be categorized by:
- Whether it contains quantitative or qualitative information or both
- Whether the source is objective (factual) or persuasive (opinion) and may be biased
- Whether the source is a scholarly, professional or popular publication
- Whether the material is a primary, secondary or tertiary source
- What format the source is in
As you may already be able to tell, sources can be in more than one category at the same time because the categories are not mutually exclusive.
Physical and online information and data used in research. This can include articles, websites, books, newspapers, and videos.
Usually, an evidence-based paper written by experts providing original research data, reviewing existing research or analyzing specific information in a particular field.
News sources, such as newspapers and some broadcast media channels or shows, inform the general public about recent events.
Also known as "conference proceedings," research written and presented at a discipline or profession specific conference.
Information that involves a measurable quantity. Examples are length, mass, temperature, and time.
Information that involves a descriptive judgment that uses words instead of numbers. Some examples are gender, country of origin name, and emotional state.
From a neutral standpoint or perspective.
Based on a specific viewpoint, belief or opinion.
Sources that contain information involved in the scholarly conversation that takes place primarily among academics at conferences, presentations and in books, blogs, pre-prints, and journal articles.
Trade sources are written by practitioners (not scholars) in a field, for an audience of others who work in the same field.
Sources that provide second-hand information. That is, they are not the original information but are about the original information. For instance, such sources are not a novel (the original, first-hand information), but are such sources as a book review of the novel or promo copy that tells readers about the novel (both second-hand information about the first-hand information). Another example: an analysis (secondary source) of a piece of legislation (primary source) that appears in a newspaper. One last example: subsequent news coverage of an event (secondary source) after the initial reporting on the event (primary source) was published by the news outlet.
Sources that provide third-hand information. That is, they are not the original or primary source (say, a novel) and are not second-hand information (such as a book review of that novel), which is always about the original source and usually by someone other than the creator of the original source. Instead, tertiary sources abstract, compile, digest, or otherwise organize primary and secondary sources. Examples are dictionaries, encyclopedias, guides, and handbooks. Tertiary sources are those you usually wouldn’t read from beginning to end.
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