Audience

Scholarly – Scholarly journal articles (such as Plant Science and Education and Child Psychology) are meant for scholars, students, or the general public who want a deep understanding of a problem or issue. Researchers and scholars write these articles to present new knowledge and further understanding of their field of study.

Additionally, they are:

• Where findings of research projects, data and analytics, and case studies usually appear first.
• Often long (usually over 10 pages) and always include footnotes and references.
• Usually published by universities, professional associations, and commercial publishers.
• Published after approval by peer review or from the journal’s editor.

Strategies for Gathering Reliable Information

Once you have determined the topic of your assignments, you are ready to begin the research. This phase can be both exciting and challenging.

Of course, the technological advances of the past few decades—particularly the rise of online media—mean that, as a 21st century student, you have countless sources of information available at your fingertips. However, 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.

Finding Print Resources

Print resources include a vast array of documents and publications.  Table 2.1: Library Print Resources lists different types of print resources available at public and university libraries.

Some of these resources are also widely available in electronic format. In addition to the resources noted in the table, library holdings may include primary texts such as historical documents, letters, and diaries.

To find print resources efficiently, first identify the major concepts and terms you will use to conduct your search—that is, your keywords.

Boolean Operators

One way to refine your keyword search is to use Boolean operators. These allow you to combine keywords, find variations on a word, and otherwise expand or limit your results. Here are some of the ways you can use Boolean operators:

• Combine keywords with and or + to limit results to citations that include both keywords—for example, diet + nutrition.
• Combine keywords with or to find synonyms. For example, prison or jail. The phrase “Or is more” may help you remember that using this will show you more results.
• Combine keywords with not or – to search for the first word without the second. This can help you eliminate irrelevant results based on words that are similar to your search term. For example, searching for stress fractures not geological locates materials on fractures of bones but excludes materials on fractures of stones. Use this one cautiously because it may exclude useful sources.
• Enclose a phrase in quotation marks to search for an exact phrase, such as “morbid obesity,” “use of force,” or “law enforcement.”
• Use parentheses to direct the order of operations in a search string. For example, since Type II diabetes is also known as adult onset diabetes, you could search (Type II or adult onset or Type 2) and diabetes to limit your search results to articles on this form of the disease.
• Use a wildcard symbol such as *, #, ?, or $ after a word to search for variations on a term. For instance, you might type gang* to search for information on gang, gangs, and gangland. The specific symbol used varies with different databases.

Finding and Using Electronic Resources

Conducting Effective Online Searches

The Internet is filled with sources: some of them useful, some of them not. Watch this short video to learn how to effectively find information on a search engine such as Google.

With the expansion of technology and media over the past few decades, a wealth of information is available to you in electronic format. Some types of resources, such as television documentaries, may only be available electronically. Other resources—for instance, many newspapers and magazines—may be available in both print and electronic form. The following are some of the electronic sources you might consult:

The techniques you use to locate print resources can also help you find electronic resources efficiently. You can locate these materials in the catalogue using a keyword search. The same Boolean operators used to refine database searches can help you filter your results in popular search engines.

Using Internet Search Engines Efficiently

When faced with the challenge of writing a research paper, some students rely on popular search engines as their first source of information. Typing a keyword or phrase into a search engine instantly pulls up links to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of related websites—what could be easier? Unfortunately, despite its apparent convenience, this research strategy has the following drawbacks:

Results do not always appear in order of reliability. The first few hits that appear in search results may include sites with unreliable content, such as online encyclopedias that can be edited by any user. Since websites are created by third parties, the search engine cannot tell you which sites have accurate information.

To end up with the best results for your research you may:

• Limit results to websites that have been updated within a particular time frame
• Limit results by language or country
• Limit results to scholarly works available online
• Limit results by file type
• Limit results to a particular domain type, such as .edu (school and university sites) or .gov (government sites). This is a quick way to filter out commercial sites, which can often lead to more objective results.
• Use the “bookmarks” or “favourites” feature of your web browser to save and organize sites that look promising.

Using Other Information Sources: Interviews

With so many print and electronic media readily available, it is easy to overlook another valuable information resource: other people. Consider whether you could use a person or group as a primary source. For instance, you might interview a professor who has expertise in a particular subject, a worker within a particular industry, or a representative from a political organization. Interviews can be a great way to get firsthand information.

To get the most out of an interview, you will need to plan ahead. Contact your subject early in the research process and explain your purpose for requesting an interview. Prepare detailed questions. Open-ended questions, rather than questions with simple yes or no answers, are more likely to lead to an in-depth discussion. Schedule a time to meet, and be sure to obtain your subject’s permission to record the interview. Take careful notes and be ready to ask follow-up questions based on what you learn.

Evaluating Research Resources

As you gather sources, you will need to examine them with a critical eye. Smart researchers continually ask themselves two questions: “Is this source relevant to my purpose?” and “Is this source reliable?” The first question will help you avoid wasting valuable time reading sources that stray too far from your specific topic and research questions. The second question will help you find accurate, trustworthy sources.

Determining Whether a Source Is Relevant

At this point in your research process, you may have identified dozens of potential sources. It is easy for writers to get so caught up in checking out books and printing out articles that they forget to ask themselves how they will use these resources in their research. Reading and taking notes takes time and energy, so you will want to focus on the most relevant sources.

To sort through your stack of books and articles, skim their contents. Read quickly with your research questions and subtopics in mind.

Managing Source Information

As you determine which sources you will rely on most, it is important to establish a system for keeping track of your sources and taking notes. There are several ways to go about it, and no one system is necessarily superior. What matters is that you keep materials in order; record bibliographical information you will need later; and take detailed, organized notes.

Bibliographic information is all the referencing information you need from all sources you consider using for your paper—think of this as your working references page. Any time you look at a source, you should make note of all the referencing information—you may later decide to change direction in your paper or simply choose not to use that source as you develop your paper, but if you do decide to use that source, you will have all the details you need when compiling your references page.

Taking time to organize source information now will ensure that you are not scrambling to find it at the last minute. Throughout your research, record bibliographical information for each source as soon as you begin using it. You may use pen-and-paper methods, such as a notebook or note cards, or maintain an electronic list. (If you prefer the latter option, many office software packages include separate programs for recording bibliographic information.)

Note: Following the APA format, you need to submit a references page or reference list; you do not submit a bibliography because your references should only include the sources to which you directly referred or cited within your paper, not everything you looked at but did not use.

Table 2.4: Details for Commonly Used Source Types shows the specific details you should record. Use these details to develop a working bibliography—a preliminary list of sources that you will later use to develop the references section of your paper. You may wish to record information using the formatting system of the American Psychological Association (APA), which will save a step later on.

Finding Scholarly Articles

Most scholarly articles are housed in specialized databases. Libraries (public, school, or company) often provide access to scholarly databases by paying a subscription fee for patrons.

Searching Databases

Sometimes, a little knowledge about how to do precise searches can save you a lot of time. To find relevant sources when searching Google or a research database you should.

1. Identify the main concepts in your research question. Stick to nouns. For example, if your research question was “How are students affected by the Vancouver Housing Crisis?” your main concepts would be ‘housing crisis’ and ‘students.’
2. Find related search terms. You might choose to use a thesaurus for this. For example, you might search for “affordability crisis” or (if you have discovered that some students have faced homelessness because they were unable to afford a place to live) “homelessness” or “housing vulnerability.”

3. When searching in databases (or Google) us quotation marks around phrases to make your search more specific. For example, you would search for “common cold” so you don’t get info on cold war or cold weather.

4. Use wildcard and truncation symbols to broaden your search. For example, if you type “wom?n” into a search engine, it will show results for “woman’ and “women.” If you type “mathemat*” into a search engine, it will show results for both “mathematician” and “mathematics.”

5. Use phrases like “and” and “not” to make your search more specific. For example, if you were searching a job board to try to find a job as a network administrator, but you kept finding positions as a network manager, you might search for “network administrator NOT manager.”

When Are News Sources Helpful?

• You need breaking news or historical perspectives on a topic (what people were saying at the time).
• You need to learn more about a culture, place, or time period from its own sources.
• You want to keep up with what is going in the world today.

When Are News Sources of Limited Use?

• You need very detailed analysis by experts.
• You need sources that must be scholarly or modern views on a historical topic.

Other Types of Sources

News articles are typically written by journalists who are experts in investigating and get paid for their work. Usually, journalists will work with an editor to make sure that their work is accurate and fair. Depending on your topic, however, you might seek sources such as:

• Social media posts: Sometimes, experts in a subject will engage in public scholarship over Twitter or social media platforms. For example, professional historians will often share their work with the public on Twitter by relating current events to historical moments. The benefit of this type of scholarship is that it can be very current, and you can often see different scholars interact with one another. The downside is, however, that this information hasn’t been vetted by anyone. You may be witnessing an expert’s “rough draft” thoughts, and they might change their mind based on new information or the peer review process. To know if you should trust a social media post, you’ll also have to know a lot about who’s posting and if they’re credible.
• Blog posts: Though blogging is less popular now than it once was, blogs are still a great way to find out current information about a topic in a format that’s more detailed than social media allows for. For example, a cybersecurity expert might tweet about a new threat, but they might then write a blog post that outlines their concerns more explicitly and provides extensive proof. Remember that blogs are not vetted by an editor, and often bloggers have a motivation to sell products or services.
• Archives: If your topic involves the past, you might check out an archive. Many museums make their collections available online through archives.

Evaluating Sources

Once you’ve located your sources, you have to determine whether or not you can trust them. The wrong sources can weaken the ethos of your argument, so it’s important to fact check your sources thoroughly.

In this section, we’ll provide two models: The CRAAP test, and the SIFT test. You can choose which one you feel is most helpful. The CRAAP test shows you a series of questions you can ask yourself to determine whether you a piece of information is trustworthy and useful. The SIFT test is a series of “moves” you will take to evaluate information.

The CRAAP Test

Sarah Blakeslee and the librarians at California State University, Chico, came up with the CRAAP Test to help researchers easily determine whether a source is trustworthy. You can download a handout that explains the CRAAP test here.

There are five parts to the CRAAP Test:

Currency

When was the information published? For some topics, it’s okay if you use an older source. For example, if you want to know what DNA is, it’s okay if the source was published five years ago. If you’re researching the latest DNA discoveries, a five-year-old source wouldn’t be helpful.

Relevance

Does this information meet your needs? For example, an article aimed at educating young children about DNA would probably not be a relevant source if you work for a tech firm and are writing a report about whether to acquire some DNA technology. It’s okay if a source isn’t perfectly relevant to your research question, since that’s where analysis comes in. For example, if you were researching the Housing Crisis in Vancouver, you might read about how expensive cities like San Francisco and Hong Kong are dealing with their own housing crises in order to get ideas.

Authority

Who wrote this information? Your source should be written by someone who has the authority to speak on the matter. For example, you might come across a blog that offers natural health remedies for cancer or depression written by someone who says they’re a doctor. If they’re a doctor because they have a PhD in English Literature, however, then they wouldn’t have the authority to offer medical advice. (You would, however, be able to trust their opinion on depictions of natural remedies in novels). To determine how trustworthy an online source is, you can also look at the URL. If it comes from a .gov or .edu website, you would probably trust it.

Accuracy

How reliable or trustworthy is the information? Specifically, you should examine how the source uses evidence. Does the source link to other trustworthy sources? Does the source support its claims with evidence? How reliable is that evidence?

Tip: If you’re not sure whether a source is reliable, try Googling the source’s claim plus “criticism” or “hoax.” For example, if you read that baking soda cures cancer, you should Google “baking soda cancer cure hoax.” Sometimes, untrustworthy websites take up the top spots in Google, so if you simple Google “baking soda cancer cure,” you’ll find other untrustworthy websites telling the same lies.

Purpose

Why was this information published? You should be able to identify how the author benefitted from publishing this information. Specifically, consider how the author makes money from putting this information out there. Sources that make money aren’t necessarily untrustworthy, but following the money gives you an indication of how trustworthy a source is.

Ranking Your Sources

Table 2.2: Source Rankings ranks different source types.

Checking for Biases and Hidden Agendas

Whenever you consult a source, always think carefully about the author’s purpose in presenting the information. Few sources present facts completely objectively. In some cases, the source’s content and tone are significantly influenced by biases or hidden agendas.

Bias refers to favouritism or prejudice toward a particular person or group. For instance, an author may be biased against a certain political party and present information in a way that subtly—or not so subtly—makes that organization look bad. Bias can lead an author to present facts selectively, edit quotations to misrepresent someone’s words, and distort information.

Hidden agendas are goals that are not immediately obvious but influence how an author presents the facts. For instance, an article about the role of beef in a healthy diet would be questionable if it were written by a representative of the beef industry—or by the president of an animal rights organization. In both cases, the author would likely have a hidden agenda.

Evaluating Overall Quality by Asking Questions

When you evaluate a source, you will consider the criteria previously discussed as well as your overall impressions of its quality. Read carefully, and notice how well the author presents and supports his or her statements. Stay actively engaged—do not simply accept an author’s words as truth. Ask questions to determine each source’s value. Checklist 7.1 lists a series questions you should ask yourself as a critical reader.

Checklist 2.1: Check Your Sources