Claim Essays-ENGLISH 1B: The Basics-Background & Current Information

Books, encyclopedias and reports are a great place to start your research because:

• They're a good source for background and a quick history on a topic: the who, what, where, when and why!
• They can also help narrow down a broad topic and find smaller issues within a topic.
• They've gone through a review as part of the publishing process, so the burden of evaluating for credibility does not rest as heavily on your shoulders!

Some recommended library resources for background information:

Articles from published resources such as newspapers, magazines and journals are a great place to find current information on a topic and subtopics to supplement background information. Hint: Try doing several mini searches on your various subtopics rather than one large search on a broad topic to avoid large results sets (Example: Instead of pollution, try smaller subtopics like deforestation or plastic waste.)

Some recommended library resources for current information:

See our full A-Z list for more discipline-specific article resources (business, communication, psychology and more)!