12. Evaluating Sources
How do we evaluate a source?
1. Publisher or Author’s
Competence
2. Timeliness
3. Author or Publisher Bias
13. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS?
Reverend Fred Phelps reported in
2001 that more than 10 percent of
Gays and Lesbians in major U.S.
urban areas are infected with HIV.
To this day, they make up more
than 50% of reported AIDS cases in
the United States.
Editor's Notes
Preliminary Research Before you commit to a topic, you may want to look around and see what people are writing/talking about. For example, if you are considering writing a speech on the Air Force’s fighter jets, you should Google it to see what type of research a little about the fact. Maybe figure out what fighters the Air Force is currently using. Always begin with preliminary research. Use this to guide your three main points. Then, engage in serious secondary research.
Original research refers to actual testing of hypoitheses or research questions. In other words, finding answers on your own. For speech like ours, we will likely not use this type of research. However, small surveys testing attitudes, observations, etc. might be used as an example. You should not rely on this though. We simply do not have enough time to develop thorough enough research to support our arguments.
Secondary research this is probably what you are most familiar with. Secondary research requires reading through scholarly articles and write ups of original research. For example, if you are arguing that children do not respond positively to spanking, you might want to find a journal article that tests that. If you find it, you can cite it in your speech.
Nothing, as long as you only use it for preliminary research. While the information on Wikipedia is often well governed and is typically accurate. The nature of the source suggests that it may not be quite accurate.
The reason: We begin with the original research. The researcher engages in a study, then writes up an article. Then, someone reads it as a secondary source. She then writes up her perception on Wikipedia. Anyone who has ever played the game telephone knows, that the further we get from the actual message, the more likely the message is to be distorted.
Of course, we are lucky if that person got the information from the actual research. A lot of times, the wikipedian simply grabs information from a newspaper. This adds another layer and, of course, an even bigger opportunity for the message to become misinterpreted.
For example, several years ago, a researcher did a small study and found that after listening to Mozart, children scored higher on their tests. Now, the actual test had several limitations. First, it was a very small sample. Second, the increase was only temporary, scores returned to normal after 15 minutes. And, the tests were only in spatial reasoning, it did not work with any other type of test. However, a non-trained journalist from the NY Times read the article and published a short summary in the newspaper. This led to people going crazy, buying Mozart to make their kids smarter. The folks at Baby Einstein made a fortune! Much later, the researcher said, it wasn’t even Mozart’s music that caused it. It could be any rhythmic music, she just preferred Mozart.
