Evaluating the source material
Your source material forms the basis of your piece of written work. The source
material you use must, therefore, be reliable, accurate, and authoritative.
Trustworthy sources
Sources vary in terms of how "good" or trustworthy they are. There
seems to be a continuum of trustworthiness.
The following are the most trustworthy sources.
1. Primary research reports in refereed journals
For example, Psychological Review, The British Journal of Clinical Psychology
2. Reviews in refereed journals
For example, Psychological Bulletin
The following are moderately trustworthy sources.
1. Text books
2. Articles in popular science journals
For example, Psychology Today, Lancet
3. Articles in magazines and newspapers
For example, The Sydney Morning Herald, Readers Digest
The following are the least trustworthy sources.
1. The internet
2. Television or radio
Determining trustworthiness of sources
When you are evaluating the trustworthiness of your sources, there are four
major issues you need to think about. You need to decide whether the source material
is relevant to your assignment topic, its currency, or when the material
was created, and the reliability and accuracy of the source
material. In order to help you in your evaluation, we have compiled the following
list of questions that you might like to ask yourself about your source material.
1. Relevance
- Is the information relevant?
- Is the format or medium of the information useful for
your assignment?
- Is the information a primary or secondary source? If it is a secondary
source, how trustworthy is this source?
- Is the information comprehensive enough for your needs?
- Is the information directed toward a general or a specialised audience?
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2. Currency
- When was the information created/published/compiled/produced?
- Is the information regularly updated and how often?
- Is the information still valid for your topic?
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3. Reliability
- Who is the author/producer of the information and what are their credentials?
- Does the information come from an authoritative source?
This is a particularly important issue when evaluating websites. Often the
author is unknown and their work has not been evaluated.
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4. Accuracy
- How is the information presented? If it is factual, it should be well-documented
so that its accuracy can be verified.
- Is the information biased? Check the language to see
if it is objective and impartial or emotionally charged.
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These criteria are very broad. They are most useful when you are evaluating
non-scientific source material.
Evaluating scientific sources
You need to adopt more specific and stringent criteria when you are evaluating
scientific source material, especially journal articles that are reporting empirical
research. You should evaluate the scientific merits of the source material and
in particular, the soundness of the methodology that was used. The following list
of questions will help you do that.
1. The quality of the research within the context of the area of research.
- What is the status of this piece of written work within the specific research
area?
- Does it replicate existing work in the field?
- To what extent does it extend or go beyond existing work in the field?
- How might the significance of the work be judged by experts
in the field?
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2. The quality of the argument.
- How well is the argument developed by the writer?
- Is it logical?
- On what basis is the argument made?
- Is it based in sound evidence, or are unsubstantiated
claims made?
- Is sufficient support provided for the argument?
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3. The quality of the evidence.
- What evidence is cited?
- What is the quality of that evidence?
- Is the evidence relevant?
- Does the evidence derive from an appropriately designed
study?
- Has the evidence been collected with sound measuring instruments?
- Do the measures have demonstrated validity, and are they
reliable?
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4. The quality of the research.
- Are sufficient details of the research methodology provided to enable you
to be confident about the quality of the research?
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5. The quality of the methodology.
- Has an appropriate design been used?
- Has the study a rigorous methodology?
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6. The quality of the conclusions.
- Are the conclusions justified?
- To what extent are they drawn on the basis of evidence?
- Are there equally plausible alternative conclusions or explanations that
might be made, but which the author has neglected to present?
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7. Overall contribution.
- What do we now know on the basis of this text?
- How do we now know that?
- What do we not know?
- Why do we not know that?
- What would need to be done if we are to have that knowledge?
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Having evaluated your source materials by determining their reliability, accuracy,
quality and relevance to your topic, you are ready to begin to read the source
material purposefully, and to take notes strategically. Before you can begin reading
and note-taking, however, it is very important that you are clear about the distinction
between notes that are in your own words and those that use the words of another
author or other authors. That is the focus of our next section.
Acknowledgement: In preparing this document, "Questions to
ask when evaluating an academic text" from "The Academic Preparation
Program" of The Learning Centre UNSW and the "Library Research
Tutorial" prepared by Griffith University have provided a useful starting
point.
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