 Critical thinking alone is just an empty phrase, but in this context, critical thinking can help you do excellent work in college writing. Critical thinking about information sources can improve the quality of your work and the grades you earn. Critical thinking here means how to think about your information need. Identifying your real information need is important. Your instructor shares your real information need here, and the first few links you get from Google won't do it. Read this carefully and do some critical thinking about your true information need. Information with the point of view that this assignment requires is your true information need. All information sources have a point of view, but what is that? Time for critical thinking. Each bit of information in the human record exists for some reason, from the first K painting to the newest Tweet. All of that in the human record is part of the information cycle, and points of view live right at the center of that cycle, because everything in the information cycle comes from that point. Every single information source came from a time and place and was created for a reason. In the information cycle, find the point of view that meets your real information need and get information from that point of view into your college writing assignment. Let's try it. The topic is the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic in 1912. The assignment requires these information sources, a primary source, a peer-reviewed journal article, and a book. You need to go to the information cycle for three specific points of view. The information cycle for this topic began during the sinking in 1912. The point of view was the information world that existed back in 1912 when she hit that iceberg. A day or two later, the world learned about the sinking from newspapers. Any information source about the Titanic that was created around 1912 would have a point of view that you need, a primary source. The assignment says that your next point of view has to come from a journal. The information cycle about Titanic includes magazines and so on published soon after the disaster and right up to the present day with many different points of view. Your information need is for a peer-reviewed journal article. These will not do. You need the point of view of qualified subject experts like the ones that wrote this peer-reviewed article. In the information cycle for your last information need, a book, the point of view comes from the perspective of a historian. That information source was researched and written well after the event and might have information that could only be obtained recently. So instead of grabbing the first few links from Google, do some critical thinking about the information cycle and find the point of view that works for your true information need.