Japanese (Post)imperialism in Southeast Asia: Formats of Research Materials

You might think that you're familiar with the formats of research materials, but there's a bit more to it than the usual book/article distinction.

Books, for example, include monographs (single author titles) and edited volumes (multiple authors with editor(s).

Articles include academic (peer reviewed) pieces, popular articles, and newspaper articles.  You can use any of these in a research paper, but your manner of use may be different!  (For example, you can quote a popular article to show a common misunderstanding or opinion, but beware of taking it as an authority on fact!)

There are also dissertations, which are informally published, narrowly focused academic studies.  These are not the author's final word on his/her topic, but may be useful to get ideas and information.

You can also use primary sources (documents, journals, photographs, artwork, music, or an old secondary source that you will approach as a primary source--generally to show how skewed or outdated its point of view is.  Some primary sources can be found in raw forms in archives, whereas others will be reprinted in books.