Think about whether your chosen topic is too broad or too narrow in terms of the amount of information you will find. Identify and select appropriate information sources. Books are often good for broad background information on a topic. A periodical index is used to find magazine, newspaper, or professional journal articles. These articles generally provide timely, concise information on topical issues.
Libraries generally use electronic versions of indexes now.
Some indexes will give you the full-text of the articles, while some will just give you a citation to the article, which is the information about the article which allows you to cite it in your paper. The Internet's World Wide Web is a collection of interlinked documents that work together using a specific protocol. The Web is a good tool for finding information on companies, government, popular culture, entertainment, special interest groups, personal opinions, and more. There is a huge amount of information available on the Web, and the challenge is to separate the good from the bad. The term database refers to a storehouse of information, a place where you'd actually find the information along with the citation.