Do you choose your sources of information when researching about a topic how

7.1 Choosing a Source

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Identify and apply the criteria for finding an academic journal article to critique
• Identify key terminology on your topic to guide your article search

In the next chapter, you will learn more about the details of what makes a critique and how to write one. For a description of the critique requirements, refer to the Assessment Descriptions as part of the course overview in your syllabus.

How Choosing a Source for a Critique is Different

Most essays focus on a topic–one you have narrowed down–and require a number of sources to back up the points or ideas. A critique, on the other hand, focuses on onesource of information. Soon you will learn more about critiquing, but at this stage, it is important to know this is the key difference between a critique and a research paper because it will have an impact your choice of base and supplemental sources. However, you first need to choose a topic that you will then narrow in your search for an appropriate academic article to critique. Simply stated, then, a critique is typically a discussion centred around one primary source. However, just as with any other essay, you may need to bring in supplemental sources to support the ideas you present in your discussion. While your next assignment stems around the one source you choose, you will need to look for other sources on the same topic in case you need them for background or supporting information or to even present opposing points of view.

For the critique you are required to write for your next assignment, the original source you will base your critical response on needs to meet the criteria outlined in Table 7.1: Source Selection Criteria.

Table 7.1 Source Selection Criteria

Self-practice EXERCISE 7.1

Take a few minutes to brainstorm ideas on a topic you find interesting. This may be the same one you used for your expository essay, or it may be another one entirely. Try to come up with preliminary ideas and different key words or specific areas within that topic. Once you have brainstormed, write the key words below for easy reference. You will later use these key words when you are conducting your article search.

Key words:

Table 7.1 gives you an idea of the technical criteria you need to meet when choosing a source for your next assignment. The next section will help you ensure you find a credible source, and one that meets the requirement to use an appropriate academic source.

The Importance of Reliability

Using reliable sources in research papers strengthens your own voice and argument.

Learning Objectives

Recognize sources that may be biased

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• While researching for sources relevant to your topic, you need to critically read a source to identify possible political or other forms of bias, to consider the effects of historical context, and to discover possible bias on the part of the author.
• The age of a source is another factor to consider, the importance of which will differ depending on the topic.
• Consider the possible biases of the author.
• Websites, unlike books, do not necessarily have publishers. Therefore, you should be attentive to who is behind the websites you find.

Key Terms

• research: Diligent inquiry or examination to seek or revise facts, principles, theories, applications, et cetera; laborious or continued search after truth.
• source: The person, place or thing from which something (information, goods, etc. ) comes or is acquired.

Using sources in research papers strengthens your own voice and argument, but to do so effectively you must understand your sources and vet their reliability.

When researching, it is important to determine the position and the reliability of every source/author. This will ensure that your source is both credible and relevant, and that the source will enhance your paper rather than undermine it. The following are a few recommendations to approach sources in whatever form they take.

How Old Is the Source?

The guidelines for assessing the usability of print sources and digital sources (i.e., sources accessed through the Internet) are similar. One point to keep in mind for both digital and print sources is age: How old is the source? Examining the source’s age helps you determine whether the information is relevant to your paper topic. Depending on your topic, different degrees of age will be appropriate. For example,
if you are writing on 17th-century British poetry, it is not enough to simply find sources from the era, nor is adequate to reference only early 20th-century scholarly sources. Instead, it will be helpful to combine the older, primary sources with more recent, secondary scholarship. Doing so will make a convincing case for your particular argument. If you are researching public-health theories, however, your argument will depend on more modern scholarly sources. Older articles may include beliefs or facts that are outdated or have been proven wrong by more contemporary research.

With digital sources, be wary of sites with old, outdated information. The point is to avoid presenting inaccurate or outdated information that will negatively impact your paper.

Author Biases

Author bias is another consideration in choosing a source. “Author bias” means that the author feels strongly about the topic one way or another, which prevents the author from taking a neutral approach to presenting findings. For print sources, you can assess bias by considering the publisher of the book. Books published by a university press undergo significant editing and review to increase their validity and accuracy. Be cautious about self-published books or books published by specific organizations like corporations or nonprofit groups. Unlike university presses, these sources may have different guidelines and could be putting out information that is intentionally misleading or uninformed. Similarly, periodicals like scholarly journals or magazines may also have bias. However, scholarly journals tend to be peer-reviewed and contain citations of sources, whereas a magazine article may contain information without providing any sources to substantiate purported claims.

While you want to support your argument with your research, you don’t want to do so at the expense of accuracy or validity.

Online Resources

Websites, unlike books, do not necessarily have publishers. Instead, you should consider who is behind the websites you find. To avoid using information that comes from an unreliable source, stick to scholarly databases. While you can find some articles with general search engines, a search engine will only find non-scholarly articles. If you use broader Internet searches, look closely at domain names. Domain names can tell you who sponsors the site and the purpose of that sponsorship. Some examples include educational (.edu), commercial (.com), nonprofit (.org), military (.mil), or network (.net).

Depending on your topic, you may want to avoid dot-com websites because their primary purpose tends to be commerce, which can significantly affect the content that they publish. Additionally, consider the purpose that the website serves. Is any contact information provided for the website’s author? Does the website provide references to support the claims that it makes? If the answers to these types of questions are not readily available, it may be best to look in other places for a reliable source.

There are increasing numbers of non-scholarly sites that pertain to particular topics, but are not scholarly sources. Blogs, for example, may cater to a particular topic or niche, but they are typically created and managed by an individual or party with an interest in promoting the content of the blog. Some blog writers may have valid credentials, but because their writing is not peer-reviewed or held to an academic standard, sites such as these are typically unreliable sources.

Remember, when researching, the goal is not only to gather sources, but to gather reliable resources. To do this, you should be able to not only track the claims contained within a source, but also consider the stakes that may be involved for the author making those claims. While personal motivation may not always be accessible in a document, in some cases there can be contextual clues, like the type of publisher or sponsor. These may lead you to decide that one source is more reliable than another.

Money and magnifying glass: When you evaluate scholarly sources, look out for potential conflicts of interest and hidden agendas. For example, the sources of funding for research are very important, as they may influence the writers’ interpretation of results.

Finding Information

You may assume, automatically, that academic text books are the primary source of information when you are engaged in a formal study programme. This may be true, to a degree, usually there is little need to question the credibility of such texts – they have probably been recommended by a tutor. There are, however, many other sources of information which should not be overlooked. Such sources include: the internet, newspapers, journals, transcripts from radio or TV programmes, leaflets, photographs and other artefacts (man-made objects).

Within the category of books there are many different types and genres, for example: fiction and non-fiction, including dictionaries, encyclopaedias, biographies, almanacs, archives, yearbooks and atlases, to name just a few. There are even more categories of websites and other internet resources. All sources of information can be of relevance depending on the subject matter of the research or project you’re working on.

It is important to understand that all information will have a certain degree of validity or otherwise. A document can be easily forged or altered, especially on the internet where anybody can publish anything. It is therefore necessary to use judgement when deciding which documents to use in the context of your study.

All documents that you use for study fall into one of three categories:

Primary Documents

A primary document is a document that was written at the time of an event or period of research. Primary documents therefore include literary texts, letters, speeches and historical documents such as birth certificates and diaries. A live news-feed (or the transcript of) is a primary source – recording events as they unfold. Of course any major news event (like the Olympic Games) is likely to have several primary sources, accounts from different broadcasters. To get a fuller idea of the event you may look at more than one primary source of information – taking into account biases, points-of-view and personal or cultural perceptions.

Secondary Documents

A secondary document is written after an event - usually the authors will not have witnessed the event themselves. Such documents are usually written with reference to primary documents and attempt to provide an interpretation. Core texts - academic texts related to the topic being studied - are an example of secondary documents. In current affairs a secondary source would be a standard news story. A story that has been reported after the event. As a secondary source is a writer’s interpretation of what happened (a primary source) it is more likely to contain observations, bias and subjective commentary that try to explain the event and put it into some sort of context.

Tertiary Documents

Tertiary documents usually act as pointers to primary and secondary documents. They are indexes, directories, bibliographies and other categorised collections of information - documents that you can turn to and be guided to other, potentially relevant, documents on a particular subject. For example, checking the bibliography of books can help to lead you to further research material or to looking at a list of similar stories on a news website.