Strategies for Gathering Reliable Information
Successful Writing, v. 1.0
Learning Objectives
- Distinguish between primary and secondary sources.
- Identify strategies for locating relevant print and electronic resources efficiently.
- Identify instances when it is appropriate to use human sources, such as interviews or eyewitness testimony.
- Identify criteria for evaluating research resources.
- Understand why many electronic resources are not reliable.
Now that you have planned your research project, you are ready to begin the research. This phase can be both exciting and challenging. As you read this section, you will learn ways to locate sources efficiently, so you have enough time to read the sources, take notes, and think about how to use the information.
Of course, the technological advances of the past few decades—particularly the rise of online media—mean that, as a twenty-first-century student, you have countless sources of information available at your fingertips. But how can you tell whether a source is reliable? This section will discuss strategies for evaluating sources critically so that you can be a media-savvy researcher.
In this section, you will locate and evaluate resources for your paper and begin taking notes. As you read, begin gathering print and electronic resources, identify at least eight to ten sources by the time you finish the chapter, and begin taking notes on your research findings.
Locating Useful Resources
When you chose a paper topic and determined your research questions, you conducted preliminary research to stimulate your thinking. Your research proposal included some general ideas for how to go about your research—for instance, interviewing an expert in the field or analyzing the content of popular magazines. You may even have identified a few potential sources. Now it is time to conduct a more focused, systematic search for informative primary and secondary sources.
Using Primary and Secondary Sources
Writers classify research resources in two categories: primary sources and secondary sources.Primary sources are direct, firsthand sources of information or data. For example, if you were writing a paper about the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, the text of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights would be a primary source.
Other primary sources include the following:
- Research articles
- Literary texts
- Historical documents such as diaries or letters
- Autobiographies or other personal accounts
Secondary sources discuss, interpret, analyze, consolidate, or otherwise rework information from primary sources. In researching a paper about the First Amendment, you might read articles about legal cases that involved First Amendment rights, or editorials expressing commentary on the First Amendment. These sources would be considered secondary sources because they are one step removed from the primary source of information.
The following are examples of secondary sources:
- Magazine articles
- Biograp