Topic 1

Different Types of Sources

PhD candidates use a wide variety of different types of information as sources in their doctoral research. As you take classes, become involved in research projects, and eventually write your dissertation, you will, of course, use published books and academic journal articles, but also unpublished or pre-published academic sources such as other people’s dissertations and proceedings from academic conferences. You will likely read many “white papers” and research reports published by various professional associations, research teams, or nonprofit groups, and make use of standards and government publications put out by government agencies. You might incorporate blog posts in a variety of online publications from professional, popular, and academic communities and news articles from newspaper and media companies. Particularly for quantitative research projects, you will use data sets (demographic data, financial data) published in a variety of venues.

In a finished research project, each of the many different types of sources used in the project would be included in its reference list or bibliography. To help you get into practice for distinguishing between the various types of materials used in Arts Administration research, the quiz for Module 1, Topic 1 asks you to identify each entry from a sample bibliography by category: What type of source is it? Is it a book or book chapter? A journal article? A news item or blog post?

As you label each item by the type of source it is, here are some things to consider: Who or what group is responsible for writing this information? In what format did they make it available to readers? What venue published the information, if it has been formally published?

The differences between white papers or research reports, industry standards, and government publications (and sometimes data sets) can be hardest to parse, especially since government organizations and their various agencies often publish documents in all of these categories. In general, white papers or research reports can be produced by any group, whether they are individual scholars or professional organizations or government departments or anyone else. They are more formal than blog posts or news articles and often report on long-term research projects. Government publications are, of course, only published by governments (local, state, federal, international). Industry standards and data sets are particular types of publications that are often produced by government organizations, but can be produced by many others as well. Industry standards are the criteria or expected minimal requirements used within a particular field, published and distributed as reference documents for members of the field to follow. Data sets are published not as written narratives, but as groups of data, such as survey results, or census information, statistics, or financial data.