Popular Sources - SPMA 4P97 — Advanced Analysis of the Sport Industry: Hockey

Finding strong popular sources

Your forum assignments require you to find academic and popular sources to respond to questions from your instructor.

This page will help you:

distinguish credible popular sources
utilize Library databases to access credible popular sources

Evaluating popular sources

In university, we usually distinguish between scholarly and popular sources. Sometimes, instructors require you to only use academic sources e.g. peer-reviewed books and articles. In Sport Management, you will often be requested to use both scholarly and popular sources. In broad strokes, we define popular sources as publications created for a general audience, usually written by journalists or subject experts but not by professors or researchers.

Some examples of popular sources useful for SPMA 4P97:

articles from newspapers such as The Globe and Mail
videos from news sites such as CBC.ca
industry reports e.g. a publication from Hockey Canada
trade publications e.g. Hockey News

How can you tell if you're using a "good" popular source? Sometimes it's tricky to know if you're looking at a credible article, an inaccurate opinion piece - or even fake news.

Some tips for selecting credible popular sources:

Authority - ask yourself what credentials or experience the author has to speak on this topic
Accuracy -- has the information been reviewed for accuracy?
- Most news sites edit and review material before publishing; blogs and non-journalism websites may not
Purpose - what is the purpose of the source? Is it trying to inform, entertain, or sell something?
- Is the information fact, opinion or propoganda?
Date - if you need up-to-date information, watch that you're not using a source that's outdated

Links to credible popular sources

News sources

Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database This link opens in a new window
- Interdisciplinary
- Find scholarly journal articles, magazines and newspapers published in Canada
- Permitted Uses
Canadian Newsstream This link opens in a new window
- Full text of over 400 Canadian news sources.
- Most titles are updated daily, and some date as far back as the late 1970s.
- Permitted Uses

Trade publications

Trade publications and magazines are included in many Library databases including SuperSearch, Canadian Business and Current Affairs, Factiva and more.

Some specific titles relevant to hockey:

Industry reports

Statista This link opens in a new window
- Contains more than 1 million statistics on over 80,000 topics.
- Contains Statista dossiers and industry reports for 170 industries and 150 countries.
- Includes market forecasts, as well as market, industry and country outlooks and insights.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
- A current international news database from Dow Jones which provides access to premium content from 200 countries, in 28 languages.
- Users have access to a wide range of information from newspapers, newswires, industry publications, websites, company reports, and more.
- Permitted Uses
Plunkett's Sports Industry Center This link opens in a new window
- Find market research and trends analysis, glossaries, statistics, company profiles and contacts, industry associations and organizations for the professional sporting industries in North America.
- Permitted Uses
Tutorials