Look at your book.

• Does it have a table of contents?
• Does it have an index or some finding tool to help you easily locate information?
• Will you need to read the entire book, or only a few chapters? Are chapters easily identified and found?
• Does it contain a bibliography to point you to additional sources of information?

Your research topic may require you to rely more on "primary sources" than "secondary sources."

Primary sources are original pieces of work and include things like:

• Diaries — (The Diary of Anne Frank)
• Personal correspondence (letters written by Martin Luther King to his family, colleagues, and friends)
• Government documents (the original copy of the Declaration of Independence)
• Religious documents (Bhagavad Gita, Qu'ran)
• Photographs
• Original research conducted by a scientist (Jane Goodall's work with primates, Rachel Carson's work on the environment)
• Transcriptions of speeches (Mother Theresa's Nobel prize acceptance speech)
• Personal interviews (Saddam Hussein's last interview with CBS news anchor Dan Rather)

Secondary sources are works written by others who have reviewed, analyzed or critiqued one or more primary sources. Examples:

• A political scientist studying the Iraqi War uses a soldier's diary (a primary source) to write a journal article (a secondary source).
• A newspaper reporter reads a new medical breakthrough published in a medical journal (a primary source) and writes about it in the newspaper (a secondary source).
• Plays, novels, songs, and artwork are all primary sources. Reviews and critiques about them are secondary sources.