The sources
Identify sources
There is a great variety of kinds of publications: articles in journals, monographs, articles in printed and online encyclopaedias (Wikipedia), websites, theses, images, legal texts, norms, blog contributions, research information, movies and tv-broadcasts, conference papers, presentations, preprints, software and many more kinds.
In order to search for literature in an efficient way, you should be aware of the kind of academic literature and types of sources you are searching for as the entry and ongoing of your search depend on that.
Kinds of sources
Within the selection of literature, it is crucial to know for which kind of sources you are searching for:
Primary publications on a topic, original ideas within an academic discussion at first hand.
Literature on literature
, academic discussion in more recent elaborations based on primary literature or primary literature itself newly processed (interpretation, review, article dealing with an elaboration).
Already established knowledge which is not part of current academic discussion anymore (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, glossaries, textbooks).
Hint
You may find many of those sources in the online-catalog of Chemnitz University Library. Other sources are indexed in databases or subject-specific portals.