Choosing Sources

In order to find my sources for my papers in English 101, I start by brainstorming what types of sources would pertain to my subject. To do this, I would read about my topic in a variety of mediums to ensure a well-rounded perspective of the matter at hand, making sure that I do not miss any glaring evidence for a clean-cut answer one way or the other. For example, if I was writing an essay on how pennies should be removed from the United States Currency system, I would begin by finding all applicable research to this topic in the past five to ten years and pick from those ones that best support my argument. These sources could be anything from articles, books, financial records, statistics or even pictures of all the extra space pennies take up compared to a nickel.
From there, I would start to look for more specific information which would be the sort of information that the people that wrote the previous articles would base their article on. This could be older information from previous studies on the subject matter or even the articles which those writers cited to see if there is any additional information to peruse. In lieu of this older research, I would attempt to find newer information which either proves or disproves this information to ensure validity of my research. And finally, if these sources fit all my own personal criteria for length, objectivity, usefulness, and the type of language used in the source, they will be the source that I use. In order to improve my source finding techniques, I could try doing my own new research on the topic (if time permits), such as in the penny example where I go to local businesses, see if they can divulge how many pennies they have, then show them how much space they would be saving if pennies were eliminated, since everyone can agree that five pennies take up more space than one nickel.