Essays cannot be written without research, and research involves looking up sources. Sources are pieces of already published work that are open to you to consult. To write a well-researched essay, you'll use the authors' findings, expand on their ideas and even quote from them directly.
N.B. Every time you consult a source, whether you are going to quote from it or not, write down all the reference information you need. You'll need to cite this information in your references section. If you don't acknowledge your sources - and identify any quotes you use - you'll be guilty of plagiarism (see section on 'Plagiarism: what you need to know). For a list of the reference information you'll need to cite, you can click into the 'In text referencing and references section' of this site. As all academics will tell you, trying to re-find your source details once you've closed the book, returned the journal to the library or clicked away from the web-page is time-consuming and irritating. Best to take down all the information whilst the source is in front of you.
Not all sources are the same. You can divide them roughly into:
Primary sources or primary literature
Secondary sources or secondary literature
- books or articles about other people's work
- history of topics in chemistry
Both primary and secondary literature can be found:
- on the internet (see below)
- in the University of Glasgow library http://www.lib.gla.ac.uk/
- in the Chemistry Library: Level 5, Joseph Black Building
- in general text books
- in specialised text books
Sources can also be divided into reliable and unreliable.
Reliable sources include:
- peer reviewed journals (that is, journals which only include articles that have been evaluated and deemed sound, reliable and of good quality by reputable academics working in a similar field). A long list of such journals can be found on the Royal Society of Chemistry website: http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Journals?key=Title&value=Current
- all books found in the Glasgow University Library (but take care to notice the date of publication as the information may be out of date)
- all books found in the subject library on Level 5 of the Joseph Black building (again, take care to notice the date of publication as the information may be out of date)
Unreliable sources include:
- wikipedia
- personal websites
- company websites
- on-line news services
- popular (rather than specialist academic) magazines
- independent experts (anybody can claim to be an expert)
- chat room contributors
- all letters pages (even in peer-reviewed journals)
- university websites
Any journal accessed through the University of Glasgow library, the Web of Knowledge, the Web of Science or the Royal Society of Chemistry will be peer reviewed and safe to use.