Environmental Science

The best place to begin your research will depend on the information you need. 

• Background Sources include encyclopedias and offer a broader context on a subject, which can help you get your bearings in a subject area before trying to form a narrow research question. An example of this is using Wikipedia to get some basic information (who, what, why, where, when, how) and then using those details to investigate further. 
• Books offer both broad overviews of a topic, and in-depth coverage. Books are excellent sources of information, and browsing books in the library can be a helpful way to find niche areas of study within a complex discipline. Anthologies, with chapters written by different authors, can also offer an entree into a specific area of research. Book bibliographies and reference sections can also be a rich source of information. 
• Articles are usually much narrower in scope than books, and have current information and up-to-date discussion of a topic. They are not so helpful if you need background information (although review articles that summarize recent research can be very useful).
  • Scholarly journal articles (and books) are peer-reviewed by other scholars and cite other scholarly sources.
  • Popular articles (e.g. in magazines and newspapers) are not peer-reviewed and are not as reliable as scholarly academic sources.
• Web sites can provide good information including statistics, primary sources, opinions, and references to scholarly sources. However, it is very important to look carefully for information about the author and purpose of a Web site in order to evaluate its reliability.