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Gathering Research Materials

The first thing to consider as you gather sources for a writing project is the nature of the project in question.  The types of materials which will be acceptable for your project will depend very much on its setting, purpose and subject.  When writing a formal academic essay, for example, you will likely be restricted in the types of sources which you can use based on their scholastic credibility.   

Determining the credibility of your sources is a crucial step.  Traditionally accepted materials such as scholarly journals, newspaper articles and non-fiction reference textbooks are seen as credible because their content is usually peer-reviewed.  This means that the research contained in such sources has been verified by professionals and experts in the relevant fields.

Some compositions may be more flexible regarding the types of materials which you can use as sources.  Independent research projects may give you the opportunity to employ a wide range of source types, contingent primarily upon what you hope to accomplish in your research.  The range of potentially accepted sources in this less formal capacity could include the above mentioned traditional sources and such other media as magazines, fictional literature, internet published content and even audio or visual recordings. 

The internet, in particular, has opened up a whole new frontier in terms of research validity.  Due to the accessible nature of internet publishing, the Web is rife with both excellent, credible scholastic source and factually erroneous opinions composed by unqualified parties.  It will often be up to your discretion, as the writer, to decide which sources can be considered credible and which cannot. 

One good way to do this is to procure multiple sources which can be used to cross-verify one another.  A questionable claim published on the internet can be either refuted or validated through a thorough and varied source gathering process.