Choosing sources
Several things to consider when choosing to use books or articles for your research.
Use the source that will help you answer your research question. Sometime that's a book, sometimes that's an articles. Yes other times you might find a useful (and credible!) website.
The source you use also depends on your research outcome. If you are writing a research paper you may want to just use books and articles. If you are doing personal research, then a Wikipedia article might be just fine!
Books:
- Usually cover a broad area of a topic. For example, Alchemical traditions : from antiquity to the avant-garde is a 683 page book and covers a wide range of the history of alchemy. While you don't have to read the whole book to get the information you need, in some cases an author may take the whole book to develop an argument about a topic.
- The publishing cycle (how long it take to publish a book) is long. This can, at time, affect the currency of information.
Articles:
- Articles tend to be more specific and narrow in their scope. They also are much shorter than a book! For example, "Secrets Revealed: Alchemical Books in Early-Modern England is an article that is 25 pages with references. As its title tells us, it's on a very specific area of study related to alchemy.
- The publishing cycle of articles is much shorter than books. Therefore, information can be very current.
