Picking My Sources

English 101 is a class where we discuss current events and then write essays reflecting what we think about them. To do this, we must sometimes quote sources, and finding those sources can be a bit difficult, especially when the source needs to be peer reviewed or come from a book, or things along those lines. This is how I typically go about finding my sources...

First I read the assignment guidelines and see what is required of me for the sources. Usually it's about one to three sources, and one sources needs to be scholarly. Finding the first two sources is pretty easy, as I just look around the internet for interesting articles that will enhance my paper, and then when I find them, I use them in appropriate places in my paper. Those sources are fun to find and really help my paper once I incorporate them.

Now comes the hard part. Finding a scholarly source is difficult for me. I know that we went to the library and someone directed us through it, but I still find it quite difficult. I go to the WSU library website an use the journal search engine and look through there, but it's still usually hard to find articles that really fit my paper. Hopefully I get the hang of it by the end of the semester.

Paper one was the easiest paper to find sources for, because they all came from my brain. Paper two was also relatively easy to find a source for, because it did not have to be peer reviewed (which for some reason makes it even harder to find a source). Paper three is the paper we just turned our first draft in for, and then paper that is still giving me trouble. For the first draft I included just one source, because the other two I had were good, but I am looking to find better. Over these next few weeks I will be looking for better sources for paper three and amazing sources for paper four. Wish me luck!