If you've located three books on a topic you're researching for an essay, the first thing you should do on appraising any of these books is?

I would say that you should look at the book's table of contents, if there is one, in order to determine whether or not this book has the information you are looking for. You normally would not have time to read each of these books through to determine whether they are useful, and reading information about the author will probably not be very helpful. The table of contents and its headings can give you a good idea of what this book will be about. Hope this helps.

What is the question?

Supernatural elements.