As a student, the Internet was always my first port of call, but never where I stopped, even if it provided me with several good online sources.

@James (Organize IT), I do understand the library being a secondary source. As I’ve just mentioned, the library was essentially my first port of call, but it’s great just how many academic journals are online, because I could read up to date papers on the subjects I studied, as well as grab their references and bibliography details. And being on the Internet in the library meant that I didn’t have to go very far to pick up some of the books they mentioned!

Even better, some lecturers put up their own favourite texts on their personal web pages, so it helped to suss the tutors out AND give me a springboard from which to launch my research. The Web is a fine complement to library research.

@James.Daedalus, that’s a great tip. And since you can take both new and classic texts into account, I’m sure your references are suitably varied. Your idea doesn’t sound silly at all.

I used to depend on a single source and quote solely on one information but as pelf said, taking the source from a single information, is nothing more than plagiarism..

I go to the ‘super-store’ bookstores. There are surprisingly large sections of brand new AND classic texts regarding many disciplines. All grouped together.

Many of the modern books are written for an intellectualized audience. Though still written for a popular audience, they draw from both the very recent research and the classic texts. Thus, the bibliographies become a great tool, and, the book itself allows you to speed read through a collection of fine-enough digested research.

It’s also nice too, because you’re a little more critical of the material and it helps crystallize your own thoughts.

Anyway, it works for me. Cheers.

This is, to me, the single most important thing in research. It doesn’t matter how much you have written, but if you have only ONE source, that’s not called research. That’s basically plagiarism, LOL.