Read and Remix Blog #7

I think we should all take the time to thank Mat for taking time out of the classroom in order to develop our skills with finding sources through the library’s online resource website and aiding in our use of resources in a variety of ways. After going to the library and having a mini class about how to navigate and use these different types of academic sources, we will now be able to research and explore all of the different sources for Project 2. Without this lesson, I would be diving in head first into a project that I didn’t accurately know how to research for. Although Jeff had much to say about academic and peer reviewed full text sources, we should all be familiar as a class with primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, as well as general sources, if we decide to use outlets other than the ones offered by Florida State. In chapter 6 of The Bedford Book of Genres, the main focus is on evaluating and choosing sources. Sources can be absolutely anything that gives information about a certain topic. Everything we read, text we encounter, and information/opinions are considered sources. Not only can they be anything, but also general sources can be found everywhere. These sources should aid in decision-making and start the questioning process about who created it, what purpose does it serve, and for what audience was it created. The two types of sources include general and specialized academic sources. General sources are aimed for a general audience and written by non-experts. They help understanding an overall topic, discover, and help begin the exploration process of a new topic. Specialized academic sources are usually written by experts in a certain field and study topics in depth, access latest research, and are peer reviewed. Lastly, there are 3 different types of sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary are original, secondary are written about the original source, and tertiary are written about many secondary sources. With all of this additional knowledge about general and academic resources, as well as the different types, we should all be able to accurately and efficiently research for Project 2.