Question

you've located three books on a topic you;re researching for an essay. The first thing you should do in determining if any of these books will be useful

Answer 1

The first thing you should do is to check the credibility of the author. Are they an expert in the subject they are writing about? And similar questions.

Hope that helps :)

Answer 2

The first thing you should do is study the table of contents in each of the books and see if they cover the specific pieces you need to for your essay. That way you can see which sections will be the most useful to you.