What is a Popular Source?
Popular sources are written for a general audience and are intended to inform readers on a broad range of topics, such as news events, topics of current interest, and the business and entertainment worlds. Examples include newspapers, magazines, best-sellers, and consumer-oriented websites. They can be useful for getting ideas for a topic or for background information. When used to document historical events, cultural practices, or public opinion, popular sources may be valuable to researchers as primary source material.
Typical characteristics of popular sources:
- informal in tone and scope, with language that is easily understood by the general public
- often include illustrations or advertisements
- content usually written by journalists, staff writers, or free-lance writers
- do not report on original research, are not peer-reviewed, and rarely include citations
Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary - good for nearly all subjects. Scholarly and trade journals, popular magazines, newspapers, conference proceedings, book reviews, and more.
- New York Times (1851-2018) This link opens in a new windowSearch by keywords or browse images of full pages by date.
- Factiva This link opens in a new windowFull-text global news sources, including newspapers, newswires, television and radio transcripts, numerous regional and industry publications, and images from Reuters. Content comes from ~160 countries in 22 languages. Only 3 Oberlin users at one time.
- AP Archive This link opens in a new windowThe film and video archive of the Associated Press is freely available on YouTube. The collection includes over 1.7 million global news and entertainment stories dating back to 1895.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowA wide range of news, political, legal, and business information from thousands of sources, mostly full text. Includes newspapers, magazines, wire services, federal and state court opinions, federal and state statutes, federal regulations, and SEC filings. News information is updated daily and wire services several times daily.
