Different claims require different kinds of data.
- Claim: In 2005 the government seized 6.9 million pounds of marijuana.
- Data: Law enforcement statistics from government sources
- Claim: Smoking marijuana during pregnancy reduces oxygen flow to the fetus.
- Data: Empirical results from various medical disciplines, published in scholarly journals
Timeliness matters--in some cases more than others.
- When was the source published?
- Did the authors study current data and events?
- Consider your specific claim.
- Medical science advances quickly, so current information is essential.
- When you study history or literature, the currency of sources is less important, but what is essential is having sources that are contemporaneous with what is being studied: Civil War diaries for studying the Civil War.
Serious authors cite their sources.
- When authors formally cite sources, they expose themselves to scrutiny and correction from readers. Because of this, these authors try to avoid mistakes.
- If authors make a claim without citing a source, we expect them to prove the claim is true. If no proof is offered, we ask ourselves, "How do they know this claim is true?" Perhaps they don't.
- Before serious authors cite a source, they will evaluate the source's credibility first. As readers, we rely upon the good judgment of authors; we can't evaluate every cited source for ourselves. Because of this, the reputation of the author is crucial to the credibility of a source.
- Another safeguard is the peer review process, which tests the quality of most scholarly articles before they are published. A peer is an peer expert, with relevant expertise on the same level as the article's author. Furthermore, peer reviewers are chosen to be independent, impartial evaluators.
Tips for web pages
- The easiest way to cite a web source is to give a link to it. But a link is not enough!
- Online newspapers, magazines, and blogs often just give links to sources. But when the links go dead, so do their citations.
- Academic writing requires formal citations for web sources. This adds to the credibility of academic writing, and it ensures future researchers can track down their original sources.
- Library databases provide citations for their articles!
Go to the next tab: Bias