Find Your Sources

Most assignments specify what kinds of sources you can use, such as books, eBooks, articles, media or websites.

Hundreds of Thousands of Sources Available

COM Library provides access to the college level sources that your instructors love! Tens of thousands of books and eBooks, hundreds of thousands of articles, streaming media and primary sources that can even help you cite your sources, we can show you how! See more about all our collections.

Having access to so many great sources can be confusing, but getting an overview of your topic and stating your topic as a question can help you focus.

Once you've done that it will be easier to find supporting books, eBooks, articles and media for your topic.

Once you understand your assignment and have chosen or been assigned a topic you need to find your sources.

If you put your topic in the form of a question and keep that question in mind as you look for your sources, your research will be quicker and more effective.

As you search, ask yourself if the article you are looking at will help you answer your topic question--if it won't, move on to the next article. If you can't find any that will answer it, you may need to change or tweak your topic question. It also helps to identify the main concepts in your question.

Example

If you are interested in finding out about the use of alcohol by college students, you might state the question as:

"What effect does the use of alcohol have on the health of college students?"

In this example the main concepts are alcohol, health, and college students.

Getting an overview of your topic before you get other sources can save you time by giving you a good grasp of the issues affecting your topic.

If your topic is a current event, CQ Researcher or Issues & Controversies are great for overviews.

If your topic is not as current, Brtianninca and CREDO will work best.