Chapter 20 Research Sources Finding and Selecting Relevant, Reliable Sources

Primary and Secondary Research Sources

Researchers classify research resources in two categories: primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources present information obtained firsthand. Secondary sources present another writer’s analysis or interpretation about primary source material, so they are one step removed from primary sources. How you balance primary and secondary source material in your paper will depend on the topic and assignment.

Print Sources

Print resources include a vast array of documents and publications. Regardless of your topic, you will consult some print resources as part of your research. (You will likely use electronic sources as well, but it is not wise to limit yourself to electronic sources entirely because some potentially useful sources may be available only in print form.) Table 20.1: Library Print Resources lists different types of print resources available at public and university libraries.

Some of these resources are also widely available in electronic formats. In addition to the resources noted in the table, library holdings may include primary texts such as historical documents, letters, and diaries.

Periodicals, Indexes, and Databases

A periodical is a newspaper, magazine, or journal published at a regular interval (e.g., weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually).

When you search for periodicals, be sure to distinguish among different types. Mass-market publications, such as newspapers and popular magazines, differ from scholarly publications in their accessibility, audience, and purpose.

Newspapers and magazines are written for a broader audience than scholarly journals. Their content is usually quite accessible and easy to read. Trade magazines that target readers within a particular industry may presume the reader has background knowledge, but these publications are still reader-friendly for a general audience. Their purpose is to inform and, often, to entertain or persuade readers as well.

Scholarly or academic journals are written for a much smaller and more expert audience. The creators of these publications assume that most of their readers are already familiar with the main topic of the journal. The target audience is also highly educated. Informing is the primary purpose of a scholarly journal. While a journal article may advance an agenda or advocate a position, the content will still be presented in an objective style and formal tone. Entertaining readers with breezy comments and splashy graphics is not a priority with this type of source.

Because of these differences, scholarly journals are more challenging to read. That does not mean you should avoid them. On the contrary, they are valuable resources for your research because they provide in-depth information that is unavailable elsewhere. Because knowledgeable professionals carefully review the content before publication (in a process called peer review), scholarly journals provide far more reliable information than much of the information available in popular media. Seek out academic journals along with other resources. Just be prepared to spend a little more time processing the information.

Library catalogues can help you locate book-length sources as well as some types of nonprint holdings, such as CDs, DVDs, and audiobooks. To locate shorter sources, such as magazine and journal articles, you will need to use a periodical index or an online periodical database. These tools index the articles that appear in newspapers, magazines, and journals. Like catalogues, they provide publication information about an article and often allow users to access a summary or even the full text of the article.

Print indexes may be available in the periodicals section of your library. Increasingly, libraries use online databases that users can access through the library website. A single library may provide access to multiple periodical databases. These can range from general news databases to specialized databases. Table 20.2: Commonly Used Online Databases describes some indexes and databases that are frequently used.

Electronic Resources

With the expansion of technology and media over the past few decades, a wealth of information is available to you in electronic format. Some types of resources, such as television documentaries, may only be available electronically. Other resources—for instance, many newspapers and magazines—may be available in both print and electronic form. The following are some of the electronic sources you might consult:

• Online databases
• Popular Web search engines
• Websites maintained by businesses, universities, non-profit organizations, or government agencies
• Newspapers, magazines, and journals published on the Web
• E-books
• Audiobooks
• Industry blogs
• Radio and television programs and other audio and video recordings
• Online discussion groups

The techniques you use to locate print resources can also help you find electronic resources efficiently. Libraries usually have computers, audiobooks, and audio and video recordings available. You can locate these materials in the catalogue using a keyword search. The same Boolean operators used to refine database searches can help you filter your results in popular search engines.

Interviews

With so many print and electronic media readily available, it is easy to overlook another valuable information resource: other people. Consider whether you could use a person or group as a primary source. For instance, you might interview a professor who has expertise in a particular subject, a worker within a particular industry, or a representative from a political organization. Interviews can be a great way to get firsthand information.

To get the most out of an interview, you will need to plan ahead. Contact your subject early in the research process and explain your purpose for requesting an interview. Prepare detailed questions. Open-ended questions, rather than questions with simple yes or no answers, are more likely to lead to an in-depth discussion. Schedule a time to meet, and be sure to obtain your subject’s permission to record the interview. Take careful notes and be ready to ask follow-up questions based on what you learn.

Determining Whether a Source Is Relevant

At this point in your research process, you may have identified dozens of potential sources. It is easy for a writer to get so caught up in checking out books and printing out articles that they forget to ask themselves how they will use these resources in their research.

Now it is time to be ruthless. Critically review the sources you’ve collected, and begin to reduce the number of sources you’ll use in your essay, focusing only on those that are most relevant and—as we’ll get to in the next section—most reliable.

Reading closely and taking notes take valuable time and energy, so you should focus on the most relevant sources. To weed through your stack of books and articles, skim their contents. Read quickly with your research questions and subtopics in mind. Table 20.3: Tips for Skimming Books and Articles explains how to skim to get a quick sense of what topics are covered. If a book or article is not especially relevant, put it aside. You can always come back to it later if you need to.

Be sure to seek out sources that are current, or up to date. Depending on the topic, sources may become outdated relatively soon after publication, or they may remain useful for years. For instance, online social networking sites have evolved rapidly over the past few years. An article published in 2002 about this topic will not provide current information. On the other hand, a research paper on elementary education practices might refer to studies published decades ago by influential child psychologists that have not lost their currency.

When using websites for research, check to see when the site was last updated. Many sites publish this information on the home page, and some, such as news sites, are updated daily or weekly. Many nonfunctioning links, for example, are a sign that a website is not regularly updated.

Do not be afraid to ask your instructor for suggestions if you find that many of your most relevant sources are not especially reliable—or that the most reliable sources are not relevant.

Determining Whether a Source Is Reliable

All information sources are not created equal. Sources can vary greatly in terms of how carefully they are researched, written, edited, and reviewed for accuracy. Common sense will help you identify obviously questionable sources, such as tabloids that feature tales of alien abductions or websites with glaring typos and odd illustrations. Sometimes, however, a source’s reliability—or lack of it—is not so obvious.

To evaluate your research sources, use critical thinking skills consciously and deliberately. Consider criteria such as the type of source, its intended purpose and audience, the author’s qualifications, the publication’s reputation, any indications of bias or hidden agendas, how current the source is, and the overall quality of the writing, thinking, and design.

The different types of sources you will consult are written for distinct purposes and with different audiences in mind. This accounts for other differences, such as the following:

• • How thoroughly the writers cover a given topic
• • How carefully the writers research and document facts
• • How editors review the work
• • What biases or agendas affect the content.

A journal article written for an academic audience for the purpose of expanding scholarship in a given field will take an approach quite different from a magazine feature written to inform a general audience. Textbooks, hard news articles, and websites approach a subject from different angles as well. To some extent, the type of source provides clues about its overall depth and reliability. Table 20.4: Source Rankings ranks different source types.

Student Sample: Evaluating Research Source

Mariah is a student who has decided to write an essay on music piracy for her communications class. During the process of prewriting to choose a topic, Mariah conducts a Google search on “music piracy.” The search results are in Figure 20.1. Now it is time for Mariah to choose which research sources to use in her essay, thinking about whether the sources she’s found are relevant and reliable.

When she was prewriting, Mariah used this search to generate ideas. However, now she reviews the results of the Internet search more critically in order to determine which resources will be suitable for her essay. Figuring out which sources are both relevant and reliable will help her determine which resources are worth spending more time on.

The first result is a Wikipedia article. However, just because Wikipedia comes up first, it doesn’t mean it’s the most reliable source. When she first began thinking about this topic, Mariah skimmed the Wikipedia article to get an overview of the topic. However, she knows that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for her final essay, and she’s learned plenty more about music piracy in the course of her research, so she doesn’t return to Wikipedia or use any information from the article in her essay.

The second result is from the Recording Industry Association of America. This source might have useful information about musicians’ and record companies’ perspectives on piracy. The website might also have some useful facts that she could use in her essay. However, since this source will be biased toward the interests of those musicians and companies, she can’t consider it to be an objective source. She will be mindful of that potential bias.

Mariah also notices some scholarly articles listed—one from the University of Chicago and others listed above. These are likely to be good sources for an academic essay. She knows they will be more difficult to read than some of the other possible sources, but she knows that the information will likely be research based, objective, and peer reviewed. To find suitable scholarly articles on her topic, Mariah knows that her university library’s databases will be more helpful than a Google search, and she makes a note to ask a reference librarian for assistance with her search.

Next, Mariah notices an article from Forbes magazine. She’s not familiar with Forbes, but another Google search tells her that Forbes is a well-known business magazine. If she wants to research the economics of music piracy, this source might be useful. However, Forbes is not a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, so Mariah needs to check whether she is required to use only peer-reviewed sources. Even if she isn’t, Mariah knows that because Forbes is owned by a company and published for profit, she can’t count on this being an objective source.

The final source is from GradeSaver. Mariah isn’t familiar with GradeSaver, but a quick look at the website tells her that this is what her professor calls a “cheat site”—a site for students who want to buy essays. Mariah knows that there is no way to tell who wrote this essay or how reliable it is—it might be written by a student who knows even less about mass media than Mariah does, and the student might have received an F on it! It’s not a reputable source, so Mariah closes the page without reading the essay or taking any notes.

Evaluate Research Sources by Asking Questions

When you evaluate a source, you will consider the criteria previously discussed as well as your overall impressions of its quality. Read carefully, and notice how well the author presents and supports their statements. Stay actively engaged—do not simply accept an author’s words as truth. Ask questions to determine each source’s value. Checklist 20.1 lists ten questions you, as a critical reader, can ask about potential research sources.

Keeping Track of Research Sources

As you conduct research, take time to organize source information to ensure that you are not scrambling to find it at the last minute. Throughout your research, record bibliographical information for each source as soon as you begin using it. You may use pen-and-paper methods, such as a notebook or note cards, or maintain an electronic list. If you prefer the latter option, many office software packages include separate programs for recording bibliographic information. These programs are not usually reliable enough to depend on to format the final list of sources, but they can be useful for recording information as you go.

The following tables show which specific details you should record in the working bibliography. Although it’s not necessary at this stage, you may wish to record information using the formatting system of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA), which will save a step later on.

To make your working bibliography even more complete, you may wish to record additional details, such as a book’s call number or contact information for a person you interviewed. That way, if you need to locate a source again, you will have all the information you need right at your fingertips. You may also wish to assign each source a code number to use when taking notes (1, 2, 3 or a similar system).

Taking Notes Efficiently

Good researchers stay focused and organized as they gather information from sources. Before you begin taking notes, take a moment to step back and think about your goal as a researcher—to find information that will help you answer your research question. When you write your paper, you will present your conclusions about the topic supported by research. That goal will determine what information you record and how you organize it.

Writers sometimes get caught up in taking extensive notes, so much so that they lose sight of how their notes relate to the questions and ideas they started out with. Remember that you do not need to write down every detail from your reading. Focus on finding and recording details that will help you answer your research questions. The following strategies will help you take notes efficiently.

Maintain Complete, Accurate Notes

Regardless of the format used, any notes you take should include enough information to help you organize ideas and locate them instantly in the original text if you need to review them. Make sure your notes include the following elements:

• • Heading summing up the main topic covered
• • Author’s name, a source code, or an abbreviated source title
• • Page number
• • Full URL of any pages buried deep in a website

Throughout the process of taking notes, be scrupulous about correctly attributing each idea to its source. Always include source information so you know exactly which ideas came from which sources. Use quotation marks to set off any words or phrases taken directly from the original text. If you add your own responses and ideas, make sure they are distinct from ideas you quoted or paraphrased, perhaps in a different column in your notes.

Finally, make sure your notes accurately reflect the content of the original text. Make sure quoted material is copied verbatim. If you omit words from a quotation, use ellipses to show the omission and make sure the omission does not change the author’s meaning. (You will learn more about this in Chapter 21.) Paraphrase ideas carefully, and check your paraphrased notes against the original text to make sure that you have restated the author’s ideas accurately in your own words.

Use a System That Works for You

There are several formats you can use to take notes. No one technique is necessarily better than another; it is simply important to choose a format you are comfortable using. Choosing the format that works best for you will ensure your notes are organized, complete, and accurate. Consider implementing one of these formats when you begin taking notes:

• Use index cards. This traditional format involves writing each note on a separate index card. It takes more time than copying and pasting into an electronic document, which encourages you to be selective in choosing which ideas to record. Recording notes on separate cards makes it easy to later organize your notes according to major topics. Some writers colour code their cards to make them still more organized.
• Use note-taking software. Word-processing and office software packages often include different types of note-taking software. Although you may need to set aside some time to learn the software, this method combines the speed of typing with the same degree of organization associated with handwritten note cards.
• Maintain a research notebook. Instead of using index cards or electronic note cards, you may wish to keep a notebook or electronic folder, allotting a few pages (or one file) for each of your sources. This method makes it easy to create a separate column or section of the document where you add your responses to the information you encounter in your research.
• Annotate your sources. This method involves making handwritten notes in the margins of sources that you have printed or photocopied. If using electronic sources, you can make comments within the source document. For example, you might add comment boxes to a PDF version of an article. This method works best for experienced researchers who have already thought a great deal about the topic because it can be difficult to organize your notes later when starting your draft.

Choose one of the methods from the list to use for taking notes as you gather information for your research essay. Remember to record full bibliographic information for each source.

Select Only the Most Relevant Information from Sources

Good researchers are thorough. They look at multiple perspectives, facts, and ideas related to their topic, and they gather a great deal of information. Effective writers, however, are selective. They determine which information is most relevant and appropriate for their purpose. They include details that develop or explain their ideas—and they leave out details that do not. The writer, not the pile of notes, is the controlling force. The writer shapes the content of the research paper.

Earlier in this chapter, you used strategies to weed out irrelevant or unreliable sources. Now apply your critical thinking skills to the information you recorded. Analyze it to evaluate how it is relevant, to determine how it meshes with your ideas, and to identify connections and patterns.

Identify Information That Supports Your Thesis

Begin by identifying the information (details, statistics, facts, quotations, etc.) that clearly support your thesis. Mark or group these either physically or using the cut-and-paste function in your word-processing program. As you identify the crucial details that support your thesis, make sure to analyze them critically. Ask the following questions to focus your thinking:

• Is this detail from a reliable, high-quality source? Is it appropriate for me to cite this source in an academic paper? The bulk of the support for your thesis should come from reliable, reputable sources. If most of the details that support your thesis are from less-than-reliable sources, you may need to do additional research or modify your thesis.
• Is the link between this information and my thesis obvious, or will I need to explain it to my readers? Remember, you have spent more time thinking and reading about this topic than your audience has. Some connections might be obvious to both you and your readers. More often, however, you will need to provide an analysis or explanation that shows how the information supports your thesis. As you read through your notes, jot down ideas you have for making those connections clear.
• What personal biases or experiences might affect the way I interpret this information? No researcher is perfectly objective. We all have personal opinions and experiences that influence our reactions to what we read and learn. Good researchers are aware of this human tendency. They keep an open mind when they read opinions or facts that contradict their beliefs.

Having said that, don’t completely ignore information that contradicts your thesis. It can be tempting to disregard information that does not support the point you are making. However, such information is important. At the very least, it gives you a sense of what has been written about the issue. More importantly, it can help you question and refine your own thinking so that writing your research paper is a true learning process. In some cases, it can even tell you that your thesis is off track.

Reconsider Your Thesis

At the beginning of the process of writing a research paper, you developed a working thesis statement. Although a working thesis statement is, by nature, meant to evolve, many students become very attached to their initial thesis statement, and they become very reluctant to change course, even when obvious red flags come up.

At this stage in the process, you’ve selected only the most relevant, reliable research sources, and from those sources, you’ve chosen only the most relevant, reliable information. Now it’s time to revisit your thesis to ensure that your central argument is consistent with the evidence from research.

Keeping in mind all of the information you’ve found in the course of your research, critically reread your working thesis statement. Does it convey a central argument that can be proven by the research you’ve found? Does it need to be revised at all? (Hint: almost every working thesis statement needs to be revised at least once!) If the central argument is still sound, take some time to revise the thesis statement to make it even more consistent with the evidence you’ve found in your sources. You might want to refer to Chapter 12: Thesis Statements for tips on how to strengthen a thesis statement.

On the other hand, if evidence from reputable research tells you that your thesis may be wrong, don’t ignore this big red flag. It might be necessary to reconsider your argument. For example, perhaps you set out to write a research paper about the relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. On the Internet, you found plenty of websites that claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism. However, now that you review this evidence more critically, you realize that it is not reliable because it didn’t come from reputable sources. In fact, there is no evidence in reputable scholarly journals, written by expert researchers and doctors, that makes a connection between the vaccine and autism. If you proceed with the research paper, intent on arguing your thesis despite the lack of credible scholarly evidence, your essay will be unsuccessful.

Remember, the thesis of a research essay should not be based on your own opinions. In fact, although it can be rather unsettling, one of the most valuable aspects of conducting research is that writers sometimes find that evidence from research does not support their previously held opinions. For example, perhaps your opinion is that safe-injection sites are an ineffective way to deal with drug addiction. However, through the research process, you learn that there is plenty of strong, reputable evidence that proves safe-injection sites are, in fact, effective in reducing the harms of drug addiction. Based on evidence from research, you might revise your working thesis statement and make the argument that safe-injection sites reduce harm:

The bottom line is that the thesis of a research essay must be based on valid, reliable evidence from reputable academic sources. If your argument cannot be supported with evidence from reputable scholarly sources, reconsider—and rewrite—your thesis.

Make Connections

As you find connections between your ideas and the information in your sources, also look for information that connects your sources. Do most sources seem to agree on a particular idea? Are some facts mentioned repeatedly in many different sources? What key terms or major concepts come up in most of your sources regardless of whether the sources agree on the finer points? Identifying these connections will help you identify important ideas to discuss in your paper.

Look for subtle ways your sources complement one another too. Does one author refer to another’s book or article? How do sources that are more recent build upon the ideas developed in earlier sources? Synthesize (put together) different pieces of information that help you answer your research questions.

Be aware of redundancies in your sources. If you have amassed solid support from a reputable source, such as a scholarly journal, there is no need to cite the same facts from a Wikipedia article that is many steps removed from the primary research. When two sources contain the same information, cite the more reliable, credible, and impressive source to enhance the credibility of your essay.

Determine how you will address any contradictions found among different sources. For instance, if one source cites a startling fact that you cannot confirm anywhere else, it is safe to dismiss the information as unreliable. However, if you find significant disagreements among reliable sources, you will need to review them and evaluate each source. Which source presents a more sound argument or more solid evidence? It is up to you to determine which source is the most credible and why.

Finally, do not ignore information simply because it does not support your thesis. Carefully consider how that information fits into the big picture of your research. You may decide that the source is unreliable or the information is not relevant, or you may decide that it is an important point you need to bring up. What is important is that you give it careful consideration. What matters is that you have thought critically about the information from your research sources.

In this chapter, you’ve learned how to find information from a variety of reputable scholarly sources. You’ve learned how to collect and organize the information you’ve gathered from those sources. You’ve learned how to determine whether that information is relevant enough and reliable enough to make it into your essay. Next, in Chapter 21, you’ll learn how to effectively integrate that information into your essay to maximize its impact.

• • A writer’s use of primary and secondary sources is determined by the topic and purpose of the research.
• • Sources used may include print sources, such as books and journals; electronic sources, such as websites and articles retrieved from databases; and human sources of information, such as interviews.
• • Strategies that help writers locate sources efficiently include conducting effective keyword searches, understanding how to use online catalogues and databases, using strategies to narrow Web search results, and consulting reference librarians.
• • Writers evaluate sources based on how relevant they are to the research question and how reliable their content is.
• • Skimming sources can help writers determine their relevance efficiently.
• • Writers evaluate a source’s reliability by asking questions about the type of source (including its audience and purpose), the author’s credibility, the publication’s reputability, the source’s currency, and the overall quality of the source’s writing, research, logic, and design.
• • In their notes, effective researchers record organized, complete, accurate information. This includes bibliographic information about each source as well as summarized, paraphrased, or quoted information from the source.