>   I am a student who is researching Thomas Jefferson. I am writing a paper
> on where he got his ideas for the Declaration of Independence. I have found
> general answers such as John Locke. I was wondering if you could give me
> some suggestions, or somewhere to look. Thanks.

The truth of the matter is, Jefferson got his ideas for the Declaration of
Independence from many different sources.  He described it in a letter to
Henry Lee (May 8, 1825) in these words:

"With respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government
contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the
water.  All American whigs thought alike on these subjects.  When forced,
therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the
world was deemed proper for our justification.  This was the object of the
Declaration of Independence.  Not to find out new principles, or new
arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never
been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the
subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to
justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.
Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from
any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of
the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit
called for by the occasion.  All its authority rests then on the harmonizing
sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters,
printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle,
Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c."

I believe there can be no better summation of the sources of the Declaration
than that.  For a more detailed analysis line-by-line of the Declaration and
its sources, you might look at the book by Garry Wills, Inventing America:
Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (New York: Doubleday, 1978).



> Do you think that Jefferson's reading of Coke upon Littleton affected the
> writing of the Declaration in any way? Thanks.

Jefferson no doubt was influenced by Coke during the former's revisal of the
laws of Virginia.  But if Coke ever had any direct influence on the
Declaration, Jefferson never mentioned it, that I am aware of.  Since Coke
was basically concerned with commentary on the state of pre-existing law,
and since the content of the rights portion of the Declaration was really a
forging ahead of existing law, it seems doubtful that Coke had any
substantial direct influence on Jefferson's composition of the Declaration.
Whether the very existence of the Declaration, or the necessity for making
such a declaration to the international community, is somehow derived from
Coke or Littleton, I cannot say.  I have not read either, and am not
familiar with the details of what they might have to offer with respect to
individual and national rights and obligations.  I suppose it is safe to say
that Jefferson's legal education was informed by reading Coke and the other
well-known redactors of the laws of England, and that this knowledge, in
turn, formed a basic legal background that shaped the way Jefferson went
about his approach to the Declaration.  But that is a vague supposition, and
would be difficult to demonstrate without a thorough study of all those
writers and the fundamental principles that they espoused.