Welcome to SFU Library's Finding Books & Scholarly Articles Tutorial. This module will help you learn how to find print and online books.

Finding books

Bookshelf in SFU library After you've found some background information on your topic, you might be in a hurry to track down a few related scholarly articles that are required for your assignment. Consulting a few books or book chapters first, though, can often make your research process easier.

Books generally provide:

Broad scope or overview of a topic
Context, such as key perspectives or events
In-depth discussion of significant ideas or issues
Accessible language targeted to a broad audience
Detailed bibliographies or reference lists for suggested further reading

Note that you don't always need to read an entire book. Just scanning through to focus on the chapters or sections that are most applicable to your research is usually fine. Browsing a few books first can make it easier for you to choose and make sense of scholarly articles, which tend to focus on very narrow aspects of a topic in dense, subject-specialized language.

Image credit: Photo by Soo Oh (SFU Library) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0