You can find Information anywhere — books, diaries, social media, blogs, personal experiences, magazine articles, expert opinions, peer-reviwed papers, encyclopedias, and web pages — and the type of information you need will vary depending on the question you are trying to answer for your dissertation or research project.
Your dissertation requires information from a variety of sources; therefore, knowing what type of source you need will help you find the correct source.
There are three broad categories of sources:
Take a look through these tabs for definitions and a few examples.
Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based. They are firsthand documents that provide direct evidence on your topic.
Examples:
Diaries
Speeches
Correspondence
Interviews
Manuscripts
Government Documents
News film footage
Archival Materials
Autobiographies
Art works
Novels
Poetry
Music
Architectural drawings/plans
Photographs
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Tertiary sources are organisation, categorisation, index or collection of sources. A tertiary source presents summaries or condensed versions of materials, usually with references back to the primary and/or secondary sources.
Examples:
Dictionaries
Encyclopedias
Handbooks
Almanacs
Abstracts
Bibliographies
Fact books and digests
Directories and guidebooks
Indexing and abstracting sources
Grey literature is material that is not formally published in the usual established formats. In addition to identifying published resources you will need a strategy for finding grey literature.
Examples of grey literature would include:
Take a look at the tab Where to Search for more information on finding these different types of sources.
