Consult with a reference librarian for recommendations for background reading. While doing background reading, watch for bibliographies, which can point you toward other useful sources. Bibliographies are lists of recommended books on a certain topic. Some bibliographies simply provide a bibliographic citation. Sometimes bibliographies are called the List of Works Cited .
Most textbooks have bibliographies.
In libraries, the words periodical or serial refer to magazines or journals and these terms are often used interchangeably. For books , a citation includes the author, title, year of publication, name of the publishing company and the place of publication. The most important parts of the citation are the title and author. For periodical articles , the citation includes the author, the title of the article, the name of the journal, the issue date, the volume and issue numbers, and the page numbers that the article appears on. The most important parts of the citation are the name of the journal, the issue date and the title of the article.