Successful college writing, Eighth edition - Kathleen T. McWhorter 2020

Planning a research project and evaluating sources
Writing with sources

✵ 21 Planning a Research Project and Evaluating Sources

✵ 22 Finding Sources, Taking Notes, and Synthesizing Ideas

✵ 23 Drafting, Revising, and Formatting a Research Project

CHAPTER 21Planning a Research Project and Evaluating Sources

In this chapter you will learn to

✵ identify the kinds of information you need to make your ideas convincing

✵ distinguish among types of sources, and choose those that are most reliable and relevant to your research

✵ devise a working thesis and research questions

✵ analyze and think critically about resources

Writing Quick Start

ANALYZE

Suppose you are enrolled in a public speaking class. Your instructor has chosen the topic of preschool and will divide the class into two teams. One team will argue for free, public preschool, and the other team will argue against it. At this point, you don’t know which team you’ll be on.

WRITE

Draft a brief statement summarizing what you think the pros and cons of free public preschool are. Then indicate what further information you would need in order to defend either position.

CONNECT

Before planning a speech or writing in detail about the pros or cons of public preschool, you would probably need to consult several sources to learn more about it. What information would you need to support your ideas? What types of sources would be useful? How would you be sure the information contained in your sources is relevant and reliable? How would you detect whether a source exhibits bias?

This chapter will answer these and other questions about choosing and evaluating useful sources. It will also lead you through the process of planning a project with sources. Graphic Organizer 21.1 lists the research skills covered in this chapter, placing them within the context of the process of writing a research project as a whole.

GRAPHIC ORGANIZER 21.1 Writing a Paper with Sources

"The basic structure has four sections: planning a research project and evaluating sources; finding sources, taking notes, and synthesizing; drafting, revising, and formatting a research project; and documenting your sources. Planning a research project and evaluating sources includes the following: Define the assignment; Choose an interesting and workable topic; Narrow and discover ideas about your topic; Write a working thesis and list research questions; Choose appropriate source types (primary or secondary, scholarly, popular or reference, books, articles or media); and evaluate and think critically about your sources. Finding Sources, Taking Notes, and Synthesizing, see Chapter 22. Drafting, Revising, and Formatting a Research Project, see Chapter 23. Documenting Your Sources, see Chapter 23."

USING RESEARCH

IN COLLEGE AND THE WORKPLACE

✵ For an astronomy course, you are asked to write a two-page report on black holes. Your textbook contains basic information on the subject, but you need to consult other sources to complete the assignment.

✵ For a political science class, you need to write a five-page research project on a current issue (such as Internet-based voting or government shutdowns), explaining the issue and reporting on current developments.

✵ You are a journalist and will interview your state governor. You need background information on the governor’s position on several issues of local concern. You also need to interview politicians or local groups who may disagree with the governor’s positions.

Write from Sources: Use Sources to Make Your Own Ideas Convincing

To learn more about documenting sources in MLA and APA style, see Chapter 23.

The papers you write in college are intended to be serious works of scholarship. This means that instructors will often expect you to support your own ideas with convincing evidence from reliable sources and to document those sources. When you write a research project, you don’t simply glue together the facts, statistics, information, and quotations you find in sources. Like any other essay-length writing, a research project must have a thesis that your body paragraphs support with reasons and evidence. Although the information from outside sources is not your own, the interpretation you give it should be.

When you are writing a research project, instructors will expect you to use information from sources whenever your topic demands more factual information than you can provide from your personal knowledge and experience. For example, use information from sources to do the following:

✵ Make general comments more specific. For example, instead of writing that “the crime rate in Boston has decreased over the past few years,” specify the years over which the decrease has occurred, and use official police statistics to show the exact percentage of the decrease in each year.

✵ Provide specific examples to illustrate your main points. For example, if you are writing about why some online companies charge a restocking fee for returns made after thirty days, locate a business with such a policy and find out its rationale.

✵ Use sources to supply technical information. For example, if you are writing about a drug that lowers high blood pressure, gather information about its manufacturer, ingredients, effectiveness, cost, and side effects so that you can make informed, accurate comments.

✵ Support opinions with concrete evidence. To support the claim that more federal assistance is needed for public education, you might provide facts and statistics showing how much less federal assistance is provided now than was provided in earlier decades, or you could quote education experts to support your position.

✵ Provide historical information or context. If you are writing about space stations, for example, find out when the first one was established, what country launched it, and what it has been used for. These details add useful background information to your research project.

✵ Compare information about similar events or ideas with those you are discussing. For example, if you are writing about a president’s intervention in a labor strike, find out if other presidents have intervened in similar strikes. You can then point out similarities and differences.

For more on synthesizing, see Chapters 2 and 22.

Instructors will also expect you to synthesize, or make connections, among sources. When you synthesize information and ideas, you engage in a kind of conversation with your sources, making connections among ideas and information that reinforce or challenge each other to create new meaning of your own. Synthesis allows you to do the following:

✵ Explore different points of view. For example, in a paper about the consequences of divorce on children, you might use some sources that discuss the negative consequences and others that discuss the benefits.

✵ Review key ideas on a topic. For example, in a paper for an economics class explaining the reasons for increased income disparity in the past ten years, you might begin by reviewing the main reasons others have offered and respond to ideas you agree or disagree with.

✵ Understand your topic in depth. For example, synthesizing information and ideas from a variety of sources on global warming will help you see the issue from a variety of perspectives, leading you to think more deeply about the issue.

Plan Your Research Project

The best place to start a research project is at your desk. There you can think about the assignment and devise a plan for completing it. This section describes several tasks that you should accomplish before you begin your research. (See Graphic Organizer 21.1.)

Define the Assignment

Before you begin researching an assigned topic, be sure you understand your instructor’s expectations. Often the assignment will be written on the syllabus. Read the assignment carefully, noting all the requirements, which may include the following:

✵ the length and due date of the final paper

✵ the number and types of sources you must use

✵ the purpose of the assignment — informative projects ask you to explain a topic (for example, “Explain the treatment options for breast cancer”) or explore an issue (for example, “Examine the pros and cons of legalizing casino gambling”); persuasive projects ask you to defend or argue for a position (for example, “Argue for or against your college’s proposal to eliminate athletic scholarships”)

✵ the genre of the assignment and the format you must follow (for example, are you writing a case study? a lab report? an evaluation?)

✵ any limitations placed on the research (for example, “No citations from Wikipedia,” “No sources published before 2010,” “No citations from for-profit organizations”)

✵ the documentation style you are required to follow (See Chapter 23.)

If your instructor announces the assignment in class, write down what he or she says, including as many details as possible. Sometimes instructors make sample papers available for students to consult. Don’t miss any opportunity to learn from, and be inspired by, these models.

Often major research projects are announced the first week of class. As you proceed through the course, create a schedule for deciding on a topic, conducting the research, writing your first draft, revising your paper, ensuring your citations follow the required format exactly, and polishing your paper. You might build time into your schedule to share your drafts with friends or classmates or to get feedback from a writing center tutor.

Do not wait until the last minute to begin a research project! It is likely to be a large part of your final grade, so devote the time necessary to making it the best it can be.

Choose an Interesting and Workable Topic

Too many students waste hours researching a topic that they finally realize is too difficult, broad, or ordinary. The following tips will help you avoid such pitfalls:

1. Choose a topic that interests you.

2. Choose a manageable topic. Make sure you can adequately cover the topic within the assigned length of your paper.

3. Avoid ordinary topics. Familiar subjects that have been thoroughly explained in many sources seldom make good topics. For example, the subjects of “childhood obesity” and “reality TV” have been thoroughly discussed in many newspapers and magazines and ad nauseam on Web sites.

4. Choose a practical topic. Make sure information on the subject is readily available and is not too technical.

Narrow and Discover Ideas about Your Topic

For more on narrowing a topic and discovering ideas, see Chapter 4.

The following techniques will help you narrow your topic as well as discover ideas about it.

Do some preliminary reading

To get a sense of the scope, depth, and breadth of your topic, as well as to identify more manageable subtopics, you might skim an article on your topic in a general encyclopedia, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica, or in a specialized encyclopedia, such as The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Searching for your topic in your library’s holdings, in a specialized database such as the weekly CQ Researcher (which contains thousands of articles on current topics), or even Google can also help you identify the subtopics into which a topic can be broken. You can also ask a reference librarian for assistance.

Try prewriting

To uncover an interesting angle on your topic or to narrow a broad topic, use one or more prewriting techniques. A branching diagram may be particularly helpful in narrowing a topic. The questioning technique, which challenges you to see your topic from different perspectives — psychological, sociological, scientific or technical, historical, political, and economic — can help you find an interesting subtopic or get an interesting angle. Here is how one student used questioning to analyze different perspectives on television advertising:

This list of questions yielded a wide range of interesting subtopics about advertising, including emotional appeals, targeting ads to specific racial or ethnic groups, and negative political advertising. You might work with a friend or classmate to devise and answer questions.

EXERCISE 21.1

NARROWING A TOPIC FOR A RESEARCH PROJECT

Working with one or two classmates, narrow each of the following topics until you reach a topic that would be manageable for a five- to ten-page research project:

1. Taxes

2. Changes in the workplace

3. Health care reform

4. Drones

5. Alternative energy sources

RESEARCH PROJECT IN PROGRESS 1

Choose a broad topic for your research project. Come up with one on your own, or choose one of the broad topics below. Your audience consists of your classmates. Begin by using one or more prewriting techniques to generate ideas and narrow your focus. Then reread your work and highlight useful ideas.

1. Extreme sports

2. Adopting children from foreign countries

3. Employer-employee relations

4. Identity fraud

5. Piracy of intellectual property (books, music, etc.)

Feel free to consult with your instructor about your topic. Your instructor may suggest a way to narrow your topic, recommend a useful source, or offer to review your outline.

Write a Working Thesis and List Research Questions

For more on drafting and revising a thesis statement, see Chapter 5.

Once you have chosen and narrowed a topic, try to determine, as specifically as possible, the kinds of information you need to know about it. Begin by writing a working thesis for your paper and listing the research questions you need to answer.

For example, one student working on the general topic of child abuse used prewriting and preliminary reading to narrow his focus to physical abuse and its causes. Since he already had a few ideas about possible causes, he used those ideas to write a working thesis. He then used his thesis to generate a list of research questions. Notice how the student’s questions follow from his working thesis.

A working thesis and a list of research questions will help you approach your research in a focused way. Instead of running helter-skelter from one aspect of your topic to another, you will be able to identify the specific information you need from sources.

EXERCISE 21.2

WRITING A WORKING THESIS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

For one of the following topics, write a working thesis and four or more research questions:

1. Methods of controlling pornography online

2. The possibility that some form of life has existed (or currently exists) on other planets

3. The rise of celebrity worship in the United States (or in any other country)

4. Benefits of tracing your family’s genealogy (family tree)

5. Ways that personal freedoms should (or should not) be curtailed in a pandemic

RESEARCH PROJECT IN PROGRESS 2

Review the list of ideas you generated in Research Project in Progress 1. Underline the ideas for which you need further details or supporting evidence, and list the information you need. Then, using the preceding guidelines, write a working thesis and a list of research questions.

Consider Source Types

Once you have a working thesis and a list of research questions, stop for a moment. Think about which kinds of sources will be most useful, appropriate, relevant, and reliable. Keep in mind that you are unlikely to find all the sources you need online. Researchers must be equally skilled at locating sources in print and in electronic formats.

To learn more about the writing situation, see Chapter 4.

The types of sources that you will be expected to use will vary from discipline to discipline and assignment to assignment. The sources that are most appropriate will depend on your writing situation:

✵ the assignment

✵ your purpose for writing

✵ your audience

✵ the genre (or type) of writing you are expected to produce

For example, if you were writing a research project (genre) for a history class (audience: your instructor) in which you argued (purpose) that skilled military commanders enabled the South to prolong the American Civil War, you might consult diaries or letters written by Union and Confederate generals, scholarly books and journal articles on Civil War battles and strategy, and maps showing troop movements.

Use Primary and Secondary Sources

The examples above mention primary (or firsthand) sources, such as interviews, letters, and diary entries, as well as secondary sources, such as books and articles. Primary sources include the following:

✵ historical documents (letters, diaries, speeches)

✵ literary works, autobiographies

✵ original research reports

✵ eyewitness accounts

✵ your own interviews, observations, or correspondence

For example, a report on a study of heart disease written by the researcher who conducted the study is a primary source, as is a novel by William Faulkner. In addition, what you say or write can be a primary source. Your own interview with a heart attack survivor for a paper on heart disease is a primary source.

Secondary sources, in contrast, report or comment on primary sources. A journal article that reviews several previously published research reports on heart disease is a secondary source. A book written about William Faulkner by a literary critic or biographer is a secondary source.

Depending on your topic, you may use primary sources, secondary sources, or both. For a research project comparing the speeches of Abraham Lincoln with those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, you would probably read and analyze the speeches and listen to recordings of Roosevelt delivering his speeches (primary sources). But to learn about Lincoln’s and Roosevelt’s domestic policies, you would probably rely on several histories or biographies (secondary sources).

Use Scholarly, Popular, and Reference Sources

For more on using a database to narrow sources by type, see Chapter 22 (Figure 22.2).

In addition to primary and secondary, sources can also be classified as scholarly, reference, and popular sources. Scholarly sources are written by professional academics and scientific researchers and include both books by university presses or professional publishing companies and articles in discipline-specific academic journals that are edited by experts in the field. University presses include Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, and the University of Nebraska Press (among many others).

There are thousands of highly regarded academic journals, ranging from Nature (a key journal in biology and the life sciences) to the Lancet (an important medical journal) to American Economic Review (a key journal for economists). Articles in academic journals often fall into two main categories:

1. Reports on original research conducted by the writer

2. Surveys of previous research on a topic to identify key areas of agreement, which then become part of the accepted body of knowledge in the discipline

Many scholarly sources are peer reviewed, which means the articles and books undergo a rigorous process of review by other scholars in the same discipline before they are accepted for publication. For these reasons, scholarly resources are accepted as accurate and reliable, and they usually form the basis of most research in academic papers.

Reference works are well-organized compendiums of facts, data, and information. They are intended to be consulted to answer specific questions rather than to be read from beginning to end. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and thesauruses are common reference works.

Students and researchers frequently use discipline-specific reference works. For example, students of literature might consult Gale Artemis Literary Sources or The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Like scholarly resources, reference works are checked closely for accuracy, which makes them reliable sources of information. Many reference works also include suggestions for further reading, which can help researchers in their quest for additional resources. While reference works are a handy place to look up background information, they are not appropriate sources on which to base a research project.

For more on evaluating sources, see “Evaluate Sources” on pp. 580—84.

Popular sources (newspapers, magazines, and general-interest nonfiction books) typically discuss what is going on in the “real world.” One type of popular source, known as a trade journal, is aimed at people in specific professions. Trade journals provide the latest information on new ideas, products, personnel, events, and trends in an industry.

“Popular” does not necessarily mean unreliable. For example, a serious newspaper (like the Wall Street Journal) or magazine (like Time or Scientific American) can be a good source of information. The articles they publish are written by journalists who are trained in methods of research. Some popular magazines such as Scientific American and the Economist are quite serious indeed. Check with your instructor to find out whether serious popular sources are acceptable.

Table 21.1 summarizes some of the differences between scholarly and popular sources. For most college research projects, consulting and citing more serious popular sources is acceptable, but academic research projects generally do not rely solely on popular sources. Distinguishing among scholarly, popular, and reference sources when they are accessed through a database can be tricky, since visual cues, like the glossy paper and splashy photographs, that distinguish popular sources from scholarly ones may be missing. Instead, you can use database tools or consult a reference librarian to help you determine source type.

Use Books, Articles, and Media Sources

Books often take years of study to produce and are often written by authorities on the subject, so they are likely to offer the most in-depth, comprehensive discussions of topics. Most scholarly books also provide pages and pages of research citations to help you dig further into any topic you find interesting or useful. Printed books provide an index to help you locate specific topics; e-books allow you to conduct keyword searches.

Articles tend to be more focused than books, exploring just one or two key points. They may also be more up-to-date, since they can be written and produced more rapidly than books can.

For more on keyword searching, see Chapter 22.

Most of the articles you access through your library’s databases begin with an abstract, or brief summary. Reading the abstract can help you determine whether the article will be useful to your research. Keyword searches in electronic articles can help you locate the topics you are researching, and many academic databases use keywords to link you to other articles that may be useful in your research.

Media sources, such as photographs and information graphics, documentaries, podcasts, or works of fine art, can be useful sources of ideas and information. While in popular sources, media items may be used to illustrate a text simply to attract readers, in academic texts, media must play a more substantial role. Use images in printed texts, or video and sound files in online texts, to illustrate a concept or to provide an example, but do not include illustrations merely for window dressing. Finally, keep in mind that documentaries may include fictional elements. Evaluate media sources carefully before including them as sources.

As you seek answers to your research questions, you will likely need to consult various types of sources. Let’s suppose you are writing a research project about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a recognized psychological disorder in which a person is obsessively concerned with ideas of his or her own personal superiority, power, and prestige. Through the process of narrowing your topic, you have decided to focus your paper on the behaviors associated with the disorder. What types of sources might you use?

✵ To help your readers understand exactly what NPD is, you might look to a reference book, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-V), a key reference work in psychology. The DSM is published by the American Psychological Association, which makes it a reliable resource.

✵ To research the real-world behaviors of people with NPD, you might consult several types of books. Scholarly books written by psychologists and published by university presses might offer case studies of people with NPD. You will likely also find books written by people who have NPD, in which they talk about their experiences and feelings. By using both types of sources, you can explore two sides of the issue: not only the clinical, diagnostic side of NPD but also the human side of it.

✵ To get your audience interested in your topic, you might begin by talking about celebrity behaviors that may reveal NPD. If you can find videos of celebrity interviews in which the celebrity exhibits behaviors associated with NPD, you will have found a good, reliable source to cite.

Evaluate Sources

Evaluating sources is an essential part of writing a paper using research. Unless you locate solid, relevant, and reliable sources and think critically about the ideas presented in each, your essay will lack academic rigor and credibility.

Choose Relevant Sources

A relevant source contains information that helps you answer one or more of your research questions. Ask yourself the following questions to determine whether a source is relevant:

1. Is the source appropriate for your intended audience, or is it too general or too specialized?

2. Is the source up-to-date or recent enough for your purposes? In rapidly changing fields of study, outdated sources are not useful unless you need to give a historical perspective.

Choose Reliable Sources

A reliable source is honest, accurate, and credible. Ask the following questions to help you determine whether a source is reliable:

1. Is the source scholarly? Although scholars often disagree with one another, they make a serious attempt to present accurate information.

2. Does the source have a solid reputation? Some news sources — magazines such as Time or Wired and newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times — are known for responsible reporting, whereas other newspapers and magazines have a reputation for sensationalism or bias. Such sources may be useful when you are exploring multiple perspectives on an issue, but be careful about interpreting articles in these publications as “the truth.”

3. What is the publication’s purpose? Why was the source published? In the case of general-interest magazines like the Week, which summarizes many articles from magazines and newspapers around the world, the purpose is clear: to provide readers with a wide variety of perspectives on issues of local and global importance. The purpose of a flyer left in your mailbox may be to introduce a new business in your neighborhood or to get you to convert to a new religion. To determine purpose, look for a link on the publication’s Web site labeled “About Us” or “Mission Statement.”

4. Is the source professionally edited and presented? Professionally published, reliable sources are generally free of typographical errors. Materials with obvious mistakes, as well as amateur typesetting or design, are often unreliable. Blogs may be good sources of viewpoint pieces, but a blog may just be one person’s online diary. Such blogs may be subject to heavy bias as well as possible factual errors.

5. Is the author an expert in the field? Check the author’s credentials. Information about authors may be given in a headnote, in a link to the author’s biography, in the preface, or elsewhere. You might also check a reference work such as Contemporary Authors or Google the author to verify credentials.

6. Does the author approach the topic fairly and objectively? A writer who states a strong opinion is not necessarily biased. However, a writer who ignores opposing views, distorts facts, or ignores information that does not fit his or her opinion is presenting a biased and incomplete view of a topic.

7. Can the content be verified? The content in reliable sources can be verified in other reliable sources. Be cautious about using a piece of information you can find in only one source. Also be skeptical of any source that purports to summarize research or cite facts but does not provide a list of works cited (or, in the case of popular sources, attribution within the article or in footnotes or links).

For more on evaluating sources, see Chapter 3.

EXERCISE 21.3

EVALUATING THE RELEVANCE AND RELIABILITY OF SOURCES

Working in a small group, discuss the context in which the sources listed for each topic below would or would not be considered appropriate sources.

1. Topic: Caring for family members with Alzheimer’s disease

a. Introductory health and nutrition textbook

b. Article in Woman’s Day titled “Mother, Where Are You?”

c. Article from a gerontology journal on caring for aging family members

2. Topic: Analyzing the effects of heroin use on teenagers

a. Newspaper article written by a former heroin user

b. Article from the Journal of Neurology on the biochemical effects of heroin on the brain

c. Web page on teenage drug use published by the National Institutes of Health

3. Topic: Implementing training programs to reduce sexual harassment in the workplace

a. Article from the Christian Science Monitor titled “Removing Barriers for Working Women”

b. Personal Web site or blog relating an incident of harassment on the job

c. Training manual for employees of General Motors

Evaluate Resources in the Digital Landscape

Use special care in evaluating the quality of the electronic materials you consult. In addition to the guidelines listed above, consider the following:

✵ If you accessed the source through a library database or found the source through your college library’s catalog, it is most likely reliable.

✵ If the source is an electronic version of a respected print publication (such as the New York Times or the Boston Globe), the source is likely reliable. Be careful, however, about distinguishing between content that is edited and checked by the publication (and is therefore reliable) and links to other sources or any comments posted by readers.

✵ If the source does not specify its authorship or does not provide any information about the author’s qualifications, proceed with caution.

See also “Detect Disinformation” in Chapter 3.

✵ If the source contains factual errors, poor layout or design, too many photos and not enough words, or highly charged or emotional language, these are all signs that the source may be biased and lack credibility.

Think Critically about Sources

As you select sources for possible use in your paper, it is important to think critically about each. The following list of questions will help you analyze and evaluate sources:

✵ Analyze the author’s ideas. Does the author make reasonable inferences, use reliable evidence, and make it clear when he or she is expressing an opinion?

For more on identifying bias by examining the writer’s use of language, assumptions, generalizations, or omissions, see Chapter 3.

✵ Analyze the author’s language. Does the author’s use of connotation and figurative language reveal bias? What does the tone indicate about the author’s attitude? Does the author use euphemisms to hide something or to spare feelings?

✵ Analyze the author’s assumptions, generalizations, and omissions. Are the author’s assumptions and generalizations fair and reasonable? Are they supported by evidence? Do they reinforce or challenge social standards? Does any information seem to be omitted or treated in a less than thorough or complete way?

The way authors present ideas and use language and the assumptions, generalizations, and omissions that they make may all help you detect bias. Bias refers to publishers’ or writers’ views or particular interest in a topic. A biased source is not necessarily unreliable, but you need to recognize bias when you see it and find additional sources that present other points of view. Pay particular attention to tone.

Many relevant and reliable sources demonstrate bias. Some provide only a portion of the information you need for your paper. For example, if you are writing an essay on problems in the nursing profession, the American Journal of Nursing might be a reliable source, but it would probably not contain articles that are critical of nurses.

Other sources may have a strong opinion and present information from that point of view. For example, suppose you are writing an essay on home schooling for an introductory education class, and you find a book titled The Home Schooling Movement: What Children Are Missing. The author taught at a public high school for thirty years. This book may offer valuable information, but you need to recognize that its author supports classroom instruction and so may emphasize the shortcomings of home schooling or downplay its advantages. To use a biased source effectively, take the author’s point of view into consideration as you evaluate the evidence the source provides.

EXERCISE 21.4

EXAMINING SOURCES FOR BIAS

Examine each of the following sources and their annotations. Discuss whether the source is likely to be objective (O), somewhat biased (SB), or heavily biased (HB).

✵ 1. Eboch, M. M. (editor). Immigration and Travel Restrictions. Greenhaven Publishing, 2019. Introducing Issues with Opposing Viewpoints.

o This book contains several articles that present the pros and cons of different issues relating to immigration and travel restrictions. The articles are written by experts and give bibliographic references.

✵ 2. Malcolm . Ballantine Books, 1965. X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X

o Malcolm X tells his life story in this autobiography, which was published just before his death.

✵ 3. Adams, Liam. “Called to Missions. Held Back by Student Loans.” Christianity Today, 20 Apr. 2020, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/may-june/rising-student-debt-missions.html.

o This article describes the difficulties student debt can present to students applying for missionary posts.

✵ 4. Fath, Brian D. Encyclopedia of Ecology. 2nd ed., Elsevier, 2018.

o In-depth coverage of ecology, with data from experts in the environmental and life sciences.

The following worksheet can help you evaluate the relevance and reliability of sources:

Worksheet: Evaluating Sources

Title:

Author:

Author’s qualifications or experience:

Publication information (journal, volume, issue; publisher, URL):

Month, date, and year of publication:

Is this source up-to-date? □ yes □ no

Type of source:

Is the source appropriate for your audience? □ yes □ no

Does the source have a good reputation? □ yes □ no

✵ Does the source exhibit bias? □ yes □ no

✵ What evidence do you have that the source is biased?

✵

✵

✵ Are opinions clearly stated as such? □ yes □ no

What is the purpose of the source?

✵ Who publishes the source?

✵ What are the publisher’s goals?

Are the visual aids included with the source useful and credible? □ yes □ no

Is the source professionally presented and edited? □ yes □ no

Does the source contain any factual errors? □ yes □ no

Does the source provide documentation for all of its cited sources, either within the text or in a Works Cited/References section (or both)? □ yes □ no

Are there any hints that information has been omitted? □ yes □ no

If yes, describe: