Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

Further readings provide references to sources that the author has deemed useful to a reader seeking additional information or context about the research problem. They are items that are not essential to understanding the overall study or were cited as a source the author used or quoted from when writing the paper.

Lester, James D. and James D. Lester, Jr. Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide. 16th edition. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2021.

A list of further readings helps your professor understand the entire scope of your review of the literature and assess how effectively you made decisions about what to use and cite in your paper and what you found but excluded as part of your analysis. Though it depends on the writing style you are asked to use [e.g., APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.], a list of further readings is generally located at the end of your paper after the endnotes or references but before any appendices. The list should begin under the heading "Further Readings." Items can be arranged alphabetically by the author's last name [most common format], categorized under sub-headings by material type [e.g., books, articles, websites, etc.], or listed by the type of content [e.g., theory, methods, etc.].

If you choose to include a list of further readings or it is required by your professor, keep in mind the following:

1. The references to further readings are not critical to understanding the research problem under investigation. In other words, if a list of further readings were not included, the citations to sources used in writing the paper would be sufficient in allowing the reader to evaluate the credibility of your literature review and analysis of prior research on the topic.
2. Although further readings represent additional or suggested sources, they still must be related to the research problem. Do not randomly include items simply to show off your skills in searching for materials on your topic. Even though they may not be central to understanding your research study, every item listed must relate in some way to helping the reader locate additional information or obtain a broader understanding of the topic.
3. Do not include basic survey texts or reference books like encyclopedias and dictionaries. These types of tertiary sources are usually too general or basic in helping to understand and contemplate the research problem and, therefore, do not need to be included in further readings. If a survey text or basic reference source was used to locate information and its content was integrated into the text of your paper [e.g., definition from a dictionary; an encyclopedia entry], it would be cited in your list of references.
4. Non-textual materials related to your topic. If you came across sources, such as, archival images, documentary or popular films, photograph collections, audio files, large data sets, web sites, or other non-textual forms of information that may be of interest to the reader but were not referenced in your paper, they can be included in the list of further readings. Note that these materials could also be listed and described in an appendix.

To identify possible titles to include in a list of further readings, examine the sources you found while researching your paper, but that you ended up not citing because it did not directly relate to your analysis and interpretation of the literature. Review these items and, playing the role of reader, think about which items would provide additional insight or background information about the research problem if the reader wanted to investigate the topic beyond the sources cited in your paper.

Soles, Derek. The Essentials of Academic Writing. 2nd edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning Houghton Mifflin, 2010; "Further Reading" and "Wikipedia Talk: Further Reading." Wikipedia.