How to Find Credible Sources for Your Paper?

To prepare essays, term papers, conference reports, and theses, the student needs to select relevant and authoritative sources of information. We offer a selection of credible resources, where there is free access to scientific papers in various disciplines.

Fakes mislead people, regardless of their social status or age. They have negative consequences for students’ work as well. Therefore, it is very important to find only credible sources for writing any paper. If you have difficulty with this, it is better to pay for essay writing on Payforwriting. Its professionals will not only find reliable, credible, and relevant sources but also write the paper in full.

Table of Contents

How to find credible sources

Pay attention to details

If the facts look coherent, you should pay attention to the details: quotations, images, terms, and use of superlatives. Let’s cope with each item:

They can modify images using Photoshop or other similar tools. To find out if an image has been modified, search for the original image using such tools as TinEye or Google Image Search.
They take quotes out of context. Here is a classic sample: “There is no sex in the USSR.” A quick search of the words helps to see the bigger picture and find out what the speaker wanted to say.
Some authors use many “smart” words, which confuse their readers – this is very common in different scientific texts. You should look for the meanings of terms that are important to understanding the found material. You must not look at specialized publications to find out that you see a lie – usually, a few clicks and sources like Wikipedia will be enough.
Phrases like “This is the most significant law in history” or “the best actor is in front of you” are examples of superlatives. Their abundance in the text will show that the source is not credible. The authors try to convince the readers of something or even sell something.

Look at the variety of cases

Consider the texts that talk about a kind of mass phenomenon. They can be, for example, the news that “people don’t have the opportunity to conceive a kid after vaccination.” It is useful to search all possible sources for the query. If important details are the same in all materials – it is convenient to focus on things like the name of the participants and the place and date of the described event – most likely, it can be a single case but not a mass phenomenon. Learn more about unraveling such cases.

Use sources specialized in information verification

It is impossible to check each text that you see on the web. Often this is not necessary; experts have already done checking for you. In each country, there are companies that specialize in debunking different myths. Before doing the long procedure, which we described above, see if it has been done before. Here are two resources that can help you with this:

Snopes is an online platform that checks the veracity of different stories.
PolitiFact is a similar platform. As the name suggests, the site specializes in checking political facts.

Where to find credible sources

First of all, for the necessary literature, you should contact the university library. If the university has a subscription to electronic libraries, it is important to take into account the convenience of their use: the possibility of a personal account, a mobile application, and offline work.

If the found materials are not enough or additional resources are needed for preparation, other sources of information are also used. The electronic Libraries and Archives provide open access to digitized copies of electronic documents and valuable and most requested publications both from its own funds and from external sources. In the catalog, you can choose the library that is most suitable for your needs.

The Digital Public Library of America is the largest collection of books, dissertations, musical notes, maps, and other materials. There are more than 47 million publications in its funds.

eLibraryUSA is an open-access scientific electronic library with lots of scientific articles from journals in the USA and neighboring countries. Scientific texts in various disciplines are posted free of charge and can be found through search engines or directly through a search on the library website. Articles can be downloaded; you can get a properly designed bibliographic link to them with one click.

E-Library USA is the largest information and analytical portal with abstracts and full texts of numerous scientific publications and patents. A lot of scientific and technical journals are available in open access.

The Network Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations is a scientific electronic library of dissertations and theses, the largest catalog of scientific works on the Internet. For most studies, only introductory fragments are available, but all abstracts of dissertations can be downloaded for free.

Google Scholar is a collection of scientific articles and textbooks from around the world. It produces results, like a search engine – on request in the search bar. Google Scholar has materials available in various languages. The desired year of publication is configured in the filter.

ResearchGate is a European free social network and collaboration platform where scientists and researchers share their articles and discuss each other’s work. The authors of the publication can ask a question or leave a comment.

Jstor is a database of full-text scientific journals and books from various fields of knowledge.

Specialized databases

PubMed is the US National Library of Medicine’s database of medical and biological publications.

Wiley Online Library is an open free electronic library of journals on psychology and pedagogy.

ERIC is an electronic online library for educational research.

Remember that fact-checkers make mistakes – that’s why you should check the information yourself. After some practice, you will begin to notice mistakes in reasoning, logical inconsistencies, and other signs of a fake.