 A big part of becoming a successful academic writer is making sure you're using credible sources in your own writing. As you begin your research, you will need to understand what type of information you need. This video will introduce you to the information cycle and help you understand the difference between types of information sources. Understanding the intended audience and purposes of various information sources helps you determine what sources located in opposing viewpoints will work best for your researched argument essay. The information cycle refers to the way that information is produced and distributed and how it changes over time. Understanding how the information cycle works will help you to know what kinds of information may be available on your topic as you locate and evaluate research sources for your essay. The day of an event, you might find information on television or via online news organizations or social media. The authors of this information are journalists, bloggers or anyone with a social media account. This information is written for a general audience and may rapidly change or develop as the event unfolds. Days and weeks after an event, articles will begin to appear in newspapers and popular magazines. At this point, information is becoming more concrete and factual, and varying perspectives are emerging. These sources are primarily written by journalists and intended for general audiences. Around six months to a year after an event, academic or scholarly articles begin to appear in academic journals. For the purposes of your researched argument essay, these are the kinds of sources that you will want to refer to and incorporate in your research and writing. These articles are written by experts in their fields and have often gone through a peer review process in which other experts have verified the articles for accuracy and credibility. These articles are written for an audience that includes scholars, researchers and college students. When you are searching in opposing viewpoints, you will find results from a variety of information sources organized by type. For example, if we look at the broad topic of climate change, we see many different sources of information available on this topic. We might see a section called reference, which will contain entries from encyclopedias, dictionaries or other reference materials. While these are a good starting point for your research, especially for a topic that is unfamiliar, they are not the best choice to include in your essay. Remember that you are working on constructing your own argument and adding to the scholarly conversation about your topic, so you want to avoid reiterating or summarizing basic information. You might also see many magazines or newspaper articles available on a topic. While these are important sources of information, they also might not be the best choice to use as sources in your academic writing. Remember that these are written primarily by journalists for a general audience, while the articles listed under academic journals are written by experts for other scholars, researchers and college students. Answers from academic journals are a great source of accurate and well-researched information when you're writing college-level essays. Remember that you can also click on these source types to get more results. Another category, which is specific to the opposing viewpoints database, are the viewpoint essays. These essays argue about a topic from a clear standpoint or side of the issue. Usually you'll find two of them relating to the same issue, but arguing from two different points of view. In this way, the purpose of viewpoints is to give a balanced perspective to a controversial topic. Viewpoint essays are not periodicals like magazine, newspaper or journal articles that are published regularly for a general or scholarly audience. Viewpoint essays are written or compiled by the staff at Gale, the company that publishes this database. Sometimes they are reprints of articles or reports or a synthesis of several other sources. These essays may also be good sources to draw from as you begin to practice your own academic writing skills in the researched argument essay. Now that you have a clearer understanding of the difference between information sources, you will have an easier time of selecting the most relevant and reliable information for your essay. While all credible information sources have value, it is important to keep in mind your specific purpose in audience when crafting a research essay. Remember that IRSU librarians are always available to help you select the most appropriate sources for your research.