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Professional Writing & Publishing 371 and 372: Best Tools & Source Types

What Tool Should I Use? The Best Place to Search Based on What You Want

Where you search the most effectively and efficiently is determined by what type of information you are looking for:

  • Search the Internet for Jackie Chan's birthday
  • Search library databases for research on martial arts moves used in American and Chinese feature films
  • Search Research@UWW for a book on the history of American martial arts movies

Search Tools chart showing when you should use Research@UWW, library databases, Google Scholar, an Internet search engine, etc. to find types of information

Search Tools:

What Source Type Do I Need? Timeliness vs. Depth of Analysis

The below chart will help you answer questions like these:

  • What type of source would be best for you to use to find the information you need?
  • Is the currency of a source important to your topic?
  • Does the date of a source need to be close to the time the event you are researching occurred?
  • Is in-depth coverage of your topic important?

On the same topic is a terrific video about the Information Life Cycle (2:34) from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.