Evaluating sources - Gaining insight: to cite or not to cite - Practicing safe cites: writing and citing sources

APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Evaluating sources
Gaining insight: to cite or not to cite
Practicing safe cites: writing and citing sources

When notorious criminal Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he responded, “Because that’s where the money is.” I’m obviously not encouraging you to rob banks, but I am encouraging you to go to where they keep the sources that will make your paper successful. Search where your choices are good or great.

Just as life is about making good choices, so is your college research dependent on how you choose your sources. You can’t produce a quality research paper without quality sources. C-level sources can’t produce A-level grades.

Major decisions early in your research include where to look for sources, how to recognize them, how to validate them, and how not to be fooled by them.

Determining what makes a reliable source

Scholarly sources help you develop your best argument, engage with experts in the field, avoid propaganda and politicization, and demonstrate scholarship in the section of your research where most professors first look to evaluate your paper — the reference list.

How do you find high-quality sources? Would you drop your fishing hook in a pool of water to catch a big fish? Fish for sources where you increase your chances of finding the big fish — college library databases, scholarly journals, and Google Scholar.

Scholarly sources are written by recognized academic authors who generally have published multiple books and articles in peer-reviewed journals (textbooks are peer-reviewed; websites aren’t). Your most convenient scholarly sources, in addition to textbooks, are required course readings.

Characteristics of successful sources include

· Authority: The author is credentialed and affiliated with creditable institutions and organizations.

· Accuracy: The information is unbiased and error free. Author conclusions and assertions aren’t influenced financially.

· Relevancy: The information adds importance to your topic.

· Currency: The information is up to date and technologically stable.

Here are questions to ask when evaluating sources:

· Does the author appear as a credible authority in the field? What’s the author’s expertise?

· Are spelling, grammar, and other conventions perfect?

· Is the presentation perfect?

· Does the author write in a scholarly tone that respects the reader?

· Does the author provide retrievable citations that lead to additional information? Are links active?

· Are quotations cited?

· Is the website sponsored? By whom?

· Is the domain academically focused, preferably not a .com?

Assessing the quality of the sources cited

In addition to determining the quality of sources cited by the source’s extrinsic characteristics (author credibility, authoritative publication, and current date), quality of sources is also determined by intrinsic characteristics such as the following:

· Evidence fairness: Evidence isn’t slanted and avoids taking a position that lacks logic or support.

· In-depth analysis: Evidence includes critical thinking such as evaluating implying, contrasting, and comparing.

· Topic relevancy: Ensure that the source cited adds relevancy to your topic by further developing, agreeing, disagreeing, raising a related issue, or providing background.

Sources cited also need to pass your professor’s eye test with a visual evaluation that includes the following:

· Citations in APA format that include author and date

· Some single-sentence quotations and partial quotations

· Limited use of block quotations, which avoids the appearance of filling space

· End punctuation of citations positioned outside parentheses

· Accuracy of citations with unknown elements

Many universities and individual professors vary in their APA requirements for sources and citations. Ask your professor the following questions about sources and citations:

· How do you feel about Wikipedia being used for a source?

· What’s your preference for the ratio of primary and secondary sources?

· Do you require page numbers for paraphrase citations?

Table 10-2 lists some common research domains where you can locate quality sources.

Referencing .com sources doesn’t impress your professor and underestimates the expectations of most high school teachers. These sites are as impressive as a dog playing in a mud puddle and are as messy to clean up.

TABLE 10-2 Research domains

Domain Extensions

Topic

.edu

Education

.org

Organizations, usually nonprofit

.gov

U.S. Government

.mil

U.S. Military

.net

Internet services

.k12

K-12 U.S. schools

.com

Commercial

Here are some top scholarly journals:

· International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies

· International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

· New England Journal of Medicine

· American Literary History

· Journal of Music Theory

· Business Ethics Quarterly

· Cell

· Nature

· Science

· Journal of Finance

· The Lancet

· Advances in Physics

· Journal of Financial Economics

· Review of Financial Studies

· Digital Humanities Quarterly

Meanwhile, here are some top scholarly websites for academic journals, articles, and books on a variety of academic topics:

· Google Scholar

· Science Direct

· Google Books

· Microsoft Academic Search

· JSTOR

· PubMed

· Web of Science

· Library of Congress

· PsycINFO

· African Journals Online

· Arts & Humanities Citation Index

· National Archives Catalog

· Book Review Index

· WorldWideScience

· IEEE Xplore

In addition to scholarly sources, other types of evidence include personal experiences, observations, interviews, and surveys.