In higher education, a source is any material that provides information, evidence, ideas, or knowledge for your academic work. Neither research nor student assignments exist in isolation, they build on and engage with the work of others. This is why we search for, read, evaluate, and reference sources.

As a first-year student, many of your sources will be textbooks and introductory books. As you develop your knowledge of a subject, you will increasingly use reports, academic books, and scholarly journal articles.

Different sources serve different purposes:

Textbooks and academic books provide overviews of a subject and explain key concepts and theories.
Reports often address specific issues and may be written to inform practice, policy, or decision-making.
Scholarly journal articles present research findings and are usually peer reviewed, meaning they have been evaluated and approved by independent experts in the field before publication.

Different sources contribute different types of knowledge. For example, a textbook may help you define key concepts, a report may provide background information, and a scholarly article may provide evidence to support your argument.

What these sources have in common, however, is that they are what we call scholarly sources:

They are written by experts for other experts.
They are based on other scholarly sources.
They have undergone an editorial process, either through editorial review or peer review, before being published.

What types of sources are there?

Books
Journal articles
Reports
Legal texts
Reference works
Newspapers
Websites
Interviews and personal communications
and more ...

Sources are the information we use to document claims and support our own arguments. A source should help address a research question or issue, either by providing answers or by helping us view it from different perspectives. Sources serve as the foundation of an assignment. This means that your work should build on the work of others. It is when you use these works that they become sources. In principle, all documents and all information are potential sources.

However, not all sources are equally reliable or appropriate for academic work. Generally, you should prioritize academic and research-based sources in your assignments. If you use non-academic sources, you should be able to explain why they are relevant and suitable for your purpose.

The sources you choose reflect your critical evaluation and research skills. Reliable, credible sources strengthen your arguments and improve the quality of your work, while relying on less suitable or less scholarly sources may weaken your arguments.