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- 4. The World of Information
Introduction to Research
Different Information Types
As you see in the information cycle, you will encounter many different types of published materials in your research — popular magazines, scholarly journals, books, encyclopedias, and more. Each come in a variety of styles and are created for a variety of audiences. They can range from brief newsletters published by trade organizations to in-depth journals published by scientific societies and university presses intended for a scholarly audience. Here is a summary of the different source types you will encounter.
Image: 2010 Newsstand Seattle by John Henderson from Seattle, USA. [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
| Item Types & Examples | Audience & Use |
|---|---|
Newspaper
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Popular Magazines
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News Magazines
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Opinion Magazines
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Trade Magazines
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Scholarly Journals
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Books
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Research Starters (aka reference material)
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Google vs. Library Resources
Many sources are not free. Just as you have to subscribe to watch films on Netflix, you often you need to pay a subscription to gain access to newspapers, magazines, and academic journals.
What is the difference between a search engine (Google) and a library database?
Search engines, like Google, provide access to content in the open web — the part of the world wide web that anyone connected to the Internet can access for free. Google provides access to websites that are useful for class assignments including government websites and specialty news sites. The research that you conduct for your class assignments, however, usually requires that you go further than those sources that are freely available with a Google search.
When conducting academic research, it is also important to use what many call the "deep web" or "fee web" — that part of the web that is not freely available. Individuals, institutions, and companies pay for access to this content through subscriptions.
These deep web articles and resources are collected in searchable websites called "databases." For example, Netflix and Hulu are databases of popular movies and TV shows.
Here's the good news!
These database subscriptions are already paid for by the libraries of Montgomery County Community College so you can access them freely from the library website!
Not only do the library databases offer a good quantity of scholarly information, they also make it easier to search for relevant information. This is because information can be filtered in numerous ways, including by subject, format, date or title of publication, number of pages, and peer-review. Additionally, databases are comprised of information that originates in print such as magazine and journal articles, books and book chapters, special reports, etc. making these documents more accessible and stable.
Image: Iceberg photomontage by Uwe Kils and Wiska Bodo on Wikimedia Commons.
Modified by Jerry Yarnetsky of MC3 Libraries. CC-BY-SA-4.0
