Fashion Merchandising and Management

Information comes in many formats, like articles, books, websites, databases, journals, encyclopedias, social media, podcasts, chatbot "conversations," videos, data files, conference proceedings, and dissertations.

How do I recognize different source types? What is each one good for?

Books are long-format (100s of pages) and comprehensive sources that can be in print or online. Books are supported by research, and they provide full detail and context for a topic. Because it takes a long time from the author's idea to landing in a bookstore or a library, books cannot have last-minute information you get from your news sources.

Articles are shorter (1 to 10s of pages), focused pieces that appear in websites, newspapers, magazines, trade/ professional publications, and journals. Because the process for writing, researching, and publishing a newspaper or magazine article is shorter than for a book, articles can contain recent information from today or within the last week.

• Newspapers publish news articles (many shorter than 1 page or longer with more context and depth) daily in print and updated even more frequently online. Articles are written by journalists, who witness events, investigate stories, and quote experts. Their credibility typically comes with the reputation of the newspaper for ethics, bias, editing, fact-checking, and retracting errors.
• Popular magazines and websites publish articles (1 to 10s of pages) weekly or monthly to inform, entertain, persuade, or sell something to a general audience. They are visually appealing, with color, photographs, and ads, and they quote people rather than end with citations. No particular background knowledge is needed to enjoy reading and understanding a popular magazine or website article.
• Trade/ professional publications publish articles (1 to 10s of pages) weekly or monthly. These articles are written by professionals for other professionals or practitioners within their field. They use a professional jargon, and are published by organizations and associations within the field to discuss issues and innovations in their profession or industry.
• Peer-reviewed journals publish long, challenging articles (~5 to 10s of pages) monthly or quarterly in print and online with the purpose of building knowledge within a field. These journal articles are based on original research that may have taken months or years to develop, edit, and review by other subject experts. They are written by authors with academic expertise demonstrated by their educational and work credentials, using their field's accepted research processes, with highly specialized jargon, and for an audience who shares subject-specific knowledge. Visuals convey data in tables and charts, and articles are formally cited both in-text and with references at the end. Peer-reviewed sources (books and journal articles) are highly valued within the academic community.
• "Scholarly" sources - if your instructor requires this type of source, clarify what they mean. Some instructors mean peer-reviewed, while others are satisfied with any credible or published sources.

Social media offers a speedy way to deliver up-to-the-moment observations and opinions that have not been scrutinized by editors or fact-checkers. Social media has a conversational tone with an unfiltered perspective, it helps people share within their niche communities, and it enables words and images to reach across cultural, political, national, social, and economic borders.

Databases are online collections of many source types, including published articles, books, conference proceedings, and PhD dissertations. Sometimes, databases have the full text of books and articles; sometimes, databases give you the citation and abstract information so you can track down a source that you cannot immediately get in full-text. Databases can cover a single academic discipline, or they can be broad in their subject coverage. They are searchable by keywords, offer features like filters for dates and source types, and provide citation help. Google Scholar is a freely-available database, but most databases are available via paid library subscriptions. As a Jefferson student, you can access them 24/7 with your campus key and password. This guide offers help for selecting and searching databases on the "Find Sources" page.

AI Chatbots like ChatGPT are large language models (LLMs) that work like autocomplete to predict and generate a plausible response to your prompt. They are not transparent, meaning the companies that make them do not disclose what information sources they have inputted into the LLM, leaving them vulnerable to concerns of accuracy, ethics, and bias. Some AI chatbots (Copilot, Perplexity, and Gemini) are connected to the Web and provide links to their sources; follow those links to make sure the sources are credible, and that the chatbot did not "hallucinate" incorrect summaries.