How to Find Credible Sources Online
Online scholarly databases are a great place to start. Starting with a simple search of your topic is the best way to dip your toe in the water, get a sense of what’s out there, and gauge the breadth of academic research done on your topic at hand.
InfoTrac: Full-text databases of content from academic journals and magazines
LexisNexis: Provides access to credible legal, business and news information
EBSCO: Database and e-book provider for libraries and other institutions
DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals
ProQuest: A collection of many academic and business databases
JSTOR: More than a thousand academic journals and over a million images.
Newspapers and magazines can provide a great supplement to online scholarly sources as well as bring your research up to speed on what’s current and in the news. Make sure to carefully evaluate your sources, and choose from those that are known to be objective, reputable, and of high quality.
Newspapers to start with: New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal
Magazines to start with: TIME, Newsweek, New Yorker, U.S. News & World Report, Harper’s, Economist
What not to do. Avoid aggregate content sites such as Wikipedia, Wikihow, Yahoo! Answers and eHow. They pull their content from other places but do not properly vet their authors’ credentials and therefore are not considered credible sources of information.
NEXT: How Do I Know if My Sources Are Credible?
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this is very helpful
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I need information with white-collar crime. most crimes doing with forgery. the time people are put in for each crime and the damage it has caused. what’s a good website for me to find this? Where can I find what I need?
I’m writing an argumentative essay and I am looking for professional sources that agree with teenagers having a job.
5 years ago
I need some ideas
Thank you so much for clarifying where to find credible online sources. There is a lot of misunderstanding that Wikipedia is credible because users can apply edits without them being reviewed prior to publishing it on the website. Thanks again for your help.
very useful
I wont to know how to find sources i used for my research work
Very helpful
Need some good sites to get info on Montserrat before and after the volcanic eruption in 1995. Cather
Thank you! This is a great treasure trove! I sincere appreciate it!