Books

A book, sometimes called a monograph, is an in-depth work with a unifying topic.

Strengths:

• Covers material in depth
• Most important type of source for the humanities (Literature, Philosophy, Art, etc.)
• Most important type of source for qualitative studies in the social sciences (Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, etc.)
• Good source for background information

Weaknesses:

• Books take a long time to get published, so they are not good sources for time-sensitive information

Finding Books:

• To find out whether or not a library owns a book, check the library catalog. To find out whether American University has a book, use the WRLC Libraries Catalog.