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Writing Tips: Evaluating Sources
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Evaluating Sources
When writing a research paper, it is
important to think critically about the sources you choose. Not every resource that you find or collect related to your
research topic will be equally useful to you or equally valid. For
example, when writing a research paper on the making of the movie Titanic,
a website like "Shelley's Home Page" may not be considered a valid
source for historical background on the actual ship named "Titanic." Although
"Shelley's Home Page" may contain some interesting photos of
Leonardo DiCaprio (the movie's star) and James Cameron (the movie's director), it may not contain the hard facts and
data you need for your paper. In addition, some sources might contain unverifiable or
skewed data, or may even be plagiarized by another author! In order to save
yourself a lot of time and energy while researching, consider the following
points while collecting your sources**:
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Look at the author's
credentials. How qualified is the author
of the source? Author's credentials (their education, where they work,
etc.) can usually be found by looking at a bibliography on the source and/or
on a short biography of the author; if the source is a book, often these
biographies follow the main text (after an index), and, if an article, biographies
of the author often precede or follow the article. Other areas to
find information on authors can be located in the Book Review Index,
the Book Review Digest, Who's Who in America and Biography
Index. If the source is a popular magazine or journal, you might
want to check the table of contents -- sometimes author's biographies are
listed along with the article's title; in addition, in some journals, authors'
biographies are contained in a group at the beginning or end of each issue.
Some questions to ask yourself while considering an author's credentials:
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What is the author's educational
background? Is the author's area of expertise relevant to the
research you are conducting? (If not, then you will want to
consider finding another source.)
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How reputable is the person (or
organization) listed as the author?
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What else has the author written in
the past about this topic? (If this is the author's first
publication in this area, s/he may not be the kind of credible, expert
source you are looking for.)
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Why is this author considered an
expert or reliable authority? Who considers them to be an expert?
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Would this author be likely to have
any kind of bias (a special interest or personal angle) or unspoken agenda?
Remember, your goal in evaluating an
author's credentials is to get an idea of who the author is and why it is
worth reading what s/he has written before you plunge in and begin reading.
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Look at the publisher's
credentials. After you have satisfied
your questions about the qualifications of the author of the source, next
think about the institutions or affiliations which published the source
you are consulting. Government agencies and university presses tend
to be the most credible, reliable, and reputable publishers of works suitable
to be used in college-level research writing, since these publishers review
what they publish (i.e. send the work out to other experts to assess for
accuracy, relevance, etc., before they themselves publish it). If
you are unsure of the credentials of the publisher of the source you are
considering using, you might want to begin by considering what the goals
or agenda of this publisher are. For example, the publisher of "Shelley's
Home Page" might have the goal of sharing her love of the movie Titanic
(and its stars) with other web surfers; similarly, a biography on Leonardo
DiCaprio published by Random House might have the goal of satisfying his
fans, NOT of providing an in-depth or critical look of DiCaprio's film career.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when considering the publisher of
a source:
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Is there a bias or any reason for
the publishing group to slant the truth in any way?
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Does the publishing group monitor or
review what is published under its name? If so, how often and by
whom?
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Why might this publishing group be
trying to sell you something or convince you to accept its views?
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Do its members conduct disinterested
research?
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Is the publishing group attempting
to be sensational or attention-getting to enhance their own popularity
or ratings?
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Look at the date the
source was published.
When considering a source, it is also important
that you look carefully at the date of when the source was published (if
a book or a journal, publication date information can often be found on
the title page or the page following; if a website, the date the site was
last updated can often be found at the bottom of the main page). Is
the source/information contained within the source relatively recent?
In our information-age, facts and ideas are constantly changing, and a source
that might have been credible ten years ago may not be as applicable to
your research today. For example, if you were writing a research paper
on the roles of tourism in the Las Vegas economy, a travel guide to Las
Vegas in the 1970s would definitely not be a valid source for your research
since Las Vegas has experienced unprecedented growth in the last decade;
thus, what was relevant for tourists visiting Las Vegas in the 1970s will
not be (as) relevant today. In the case of Las Vegas, many of the
more popular resorts of the 1970's and 1980's are no longer even standing!
The moral of the story? Check the dates for sources used in your research.
If you are unsure of what kinds of time frames you should be considering
in your research, consult your instructor for further guidelines for the
assignment.
Some other tips to consider when
evaluating your source:
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Consider the relevance
of the source to your own research. Is the information covered in
the source closely related to what you want to research? Is the
material too general or too specific for your purposes? In addition,
some sources may be too technical or too superficial for your own
research. Going back to our researching the making of the movie Titanic
example, a source that discusses the blueprints of the original Titanic or
the specialized CGI (Computer Generated Images) used in James Cameron's
movie might not be suitable for your purposes. Instead, look for
articles or books closer to your own research goals.
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(If a print source, like a magazine
article or book), read the preface of the
source and browse through the table of contents. What does the author want to accomplish? Are
these goals similar to your own? Is the topic you are interested in
covered in enough depth to be helpful to your research? If not, are
there any related topics covered in the source?
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Look for a list
of references to show the author has consulted other sources.
Can these sources lead you to other useful material? Also look to
see if the author has consulted a variety of other sources. A source
that has only consulted websites or only consulted popular magazines may
not be as reliable as a source that consults a mixture of newspaper
articles, government studies, books, journal articles, etc.
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Cross-reference
the data you find in one source with the data you find in another.
Do the data support each other? Why or why not? If not, then
one of the sources might not be as reliable as you need.
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Consider whether or not you are the source's
intended audience. Think about the tone,
style, and level of information presented in the source, as well as the
assumptions the author makes about the reader. Academic, specialized,
and technical sources often tend to assume readers are also experts in the
field discussed and are looking for detailed explanations of the subject
covered. Sources geared for a more general audience often assume readers
are looking for a clear and economic presentation of information; information
in more public sources tend to be contained in "sound bytes" or
quick, readily accessible units.
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Think about the size
of the source. Is the source too long or too short to be useful to
you in your set research time? For example, a multi-volume work on
ship-building in the 19th and 20th centuries might be a bit too much
reading for a research project on the making of the movie Titanic,
particularly if you have only four weeks in which to collect and read all
your sources. Similarly, a one paragraph blurb in People
magazine on production costs of the movie Titanic might be equally
unhelpful to your research.
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Come to the
Writing Center! We will be happy to help you decide whether
or not the source you are considering using is useful and/or relevant to
your research.
** For more information, consult Prentice
Hall Reference Guide to Grammar and Usage, 5th Edition, Chapter 53.
Evaluating Internet
Sources
As with any source, you will need to consider
the above listed concerns and suggestions when evaluating Internet sources.
However, since the Internet is such a vast source of information, and since
it tends to be much less regulated in what someone can publish (as opposed to
most print sources), you need to be careful when using research gathered from
the world wide web. When evaluating Internet sources, you should first
consider the agenda of a web site. What is
the web site's purpose? Why did the web site creator/author design this
web site? If you are unsure about the web site's purpose/function, or
whether or not this site would be a suitable one for use in your research, consider
the following points:
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Check the extensions (.com, .edu, .gov,
etc.). Educational (which use a .edu extension) and government sites
(which use a .gov extension) tend to be more reliable sources (although
not always -- remember, many university employees/students have web sites
with educational extensions, and a few might have unauthorized content).
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If the site is not educational or a government
site, go to Network Solutions' site at http://www.networksolutions.com,
and use their "lookup" option to find out the registration information
for a site. If a site is not listed (or has a person listed but not
a company), the site might therefore be a personal site and should not be
used in academic research. If a site does have a company listed and
the company is unfamiliar to you, then go to a search engine and look up
the company. For further information, consult Prentice Hall Reference
Guide to Grammar and Usage, 5th Edition, Chapter 54.
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