How to Find Credible Sources to Write an Essay

How to Find Credible Sources to Write an Essay

Image Credit: Pixabay

Essay writing in college can be challenging. You need to spend time in the library, take notes, and go through online databases for hours. If you need to write academic essays, you should ensure they have educational content, which requires a pool of information.

This article will help you discover guaranteed essay sources to get an A grade and impress your professor, but first, let’s talk about how to begin source searching.

Starting to Search for Sources

Excellent sources aren’t hard to find, but you should spend time because you must start somewhere and narrow it down until you can connect everything for the big picture.

First, you should begin by making a general search of your chosen topic. This strategy will help you move forward. Then, it would help if you learned how to fact-check the websites and sources. Finally, go to local libraries to find relevant information.

Let’s talk about the sources in the next section.

Where to Find Credible Sources

1. Wikipedia

Although academic researchers don’t consider Wikipedia, it’s an essential springboard for you to understand the essay topic. At the end of each Wikipedia entry, you’ll get to know background information, such as citations and sources. Check the valuable sources that you can use in your work.

2. Library

Many students prefer online research, but you can also find a treasure-trove of information in the library. In addition, you may efficiently search for information in newspapers, journals, and magazines.

Moreover, you’ll find peer-reviewed and scholarly articles by well-known researchers, journalists, and authors. You may check your college for resources available to you. In addition, you can ask the help of an essay helper to search for the needed information.

3. Peer-Reviewed vs. Scholarly Sources

Students, researchers, and other experts can write scholarly articles; however, peer-reviewed sources have the author’s peers review the author’s work. It means that between peer-reviewed and intellectual, the latter is more credible. You may also search for the best custom essay writing service review for the information.

4. Academic Search Engines

Even if you’re adept at using Google for searching sources, you can’t expect the search engine to produce credible sources. Therefore, you should try other search engines providing results for academic research.

Here are some sources that the best essay writing service suggests:

  • The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) – has 4,000 sources and produces at least 100 million documents as search results. Moreover, you can use its advanced search option to narrow down your research.
  • Refseek – a web search tool with billions of books, documents, journals, and newspapers without sponsored links or ads. Researchers and students use it.
  • Google Scholar – offers a link to relevant scholarly journals with formatted citations in APA, AP, or MLA.

5. Remember Primary Sources

Research has primary sources as building blocks, and it serves as a research foundation. On the other hand, secondary sources supplement the primary sources. For example, unedited content provides a comparative overview of the topic.

6. Digital Databases and Libraries

Digital libraries contain several collections in every field, and you have access to millions of journals, books, videos, and audiobooks helping you with your research. Unlike the standard libraries, you can download and read content using your smartphone or computer anytime. Moreover, digital libraries have more ways of storing information; thus, it doesn’t have limited storage.

7. Analyze Bibliographies

When consulting Google Scholar, you should check the bibliographies for other sources. In addition, it’s essential to consider the citations of a publication.

8. Check Other Sources

Aside from books and journals, you can include other sources such as newspapers, interviews, and video or audio recordings in your essay. You should check credible sources to make your readers learn more as they read your article. Moreover, the more sources you include, the more your professor will know that you worked hard for your assignment.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Evaluate a Source

Research papers and essays have deadlines, and checking each source can take months. Therefore, you should learn to assess each source correctly within a short time.

Moreover, you should read the source’s introduction and abstract to decide if you can use them in your essay. Finally, don’t forget to read the references and citations at the end for more information about other sources. If you do it properly, you can save a great deal of time.

How to Know if a Source Is Credible

As a writer or student, your primary concern is to search for credible sources. However, with millions of articles and websites online, how can you do it? Here are some tips.

  1. Find articles that are at least moderate in length. Although it’s always quality over quantity, credible articles are always long because they provide depth to the topic.
  2. Understand the author’s persuasion about an idea or topic. Later, you can decide to follow or contradict it.
  3. Analyze the author’s background. Professional standards organizations write reliable sources. Moreover, each published article often has at least an author. Generally, if a single writer publishes a study, the organization backs it up. Therefore, you should first check for the writer’s background to ensure that you’re using credible information.
  4. Find updated information.

Final Thoughts

Your essay becomes credible if you evaluate your sources. It’s not hard to search for reliable information, but you should invest time ferreting the millions of articles and studies you find online and offline. You may use the credible sources listed in this article to help you submit a well-written essay.

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