Research is a creative, nonlinear process. Experienced scholars will tell you that they rarely end up exactly where they thought they would when they first started out! You'll need to give yourself the time to pursue ideas, reconsider ideas in light of new information, and then craft an original, researched argument.

To be successful in college-level research, you will need to make use of the resources and services of the library. Here are a few reasons why:

• Much scholarship and information is not available freely on the web. Libraries pool their resources to purchase on your behalf access to quality information sources such as databases, journal collections, and reference resources.
• Many materials are not available electronically, either because they have not been digitized yet or their original creators do not wish to make them available digitally.
• Libraries cooperate with one another to lend you items that are not immediately available in your home library.
• Librarians are experts in the organization of knowledge and can help you find treasures that perhaps you didn't even know existed!

image: Fischer, Roger A., “Stonewall GLBT button,” Digital Public Library of America

In academic research, it's important to be able to distinguish between different types of sources. These differences often are contextual, meaning that a single source might fit in different categories depending on how you are using it and in what academic discipline you are writing.

Primary sources are the raw materials of scholarship.

Secondary sources report on or interpret primary sources.

Tertiary sources synthesize and present overviews of primary and secondary sources.

Scholarly sources present sophisticated, researched arguments using both primary and secondary sources and are written by experts.

Popular sources aim to inform or entertain and are intended for a general, non-specialized audience. In academic writing, popular sources most often are analyzed as primary sources.

BEAM is a framework for thinking about the various ways in which a resource might be used to make a researched argument. Joseph Bizup, an English professor at Boston University, outlined the framework in a 2008 article. The idea has since been refined and adapted by many others.

Can you identify each source as primary, secondary, or tertiary?

Using the BEAM framework, how could this source be used to make a researched argument? Why do you think so?

Poindexter, Cynthia Cannon. “Sociopolitical Antecedents to Stonewall: Analysis of the Origins of the Gay Rights Movement in the United States.” Social Work 42, no. 6 (November 1997): 607–15. doi:10.1093/sw/42.6.607.

Wasserman, Fred. "Stonewall Riots." In Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History in America, edited by Marc Stein, 155-159. Vol. 3. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. Gale eBooks (accessed March 10, 2025). https://link-gale-com.pugetsound.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/CX3403600491/GVRL?u=taco25438&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=b3c0cdcc.

"Site of Stonewall Riots Threatened." The Front Page 23, no. 13 (2002): 20. Archives of Sexuality and Gender (accessed March 10, 2025). https://link-gale-com.pugetsound.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/JIPIKP865687452/AHSI?u=taco25438&sid=bookmark-AHSI&xid=4ba57f63.

Nair, Yasmin. "Forget Stonewall." The Gay & Lesbian Review (May-June, 2019). https://glreview.org/article/forget-stonewall/.