Most of your previous education about research, emphasized kinds of sources, and also finding "credible" sources (which might mean something written by a PhD, or might mean something else).
I require that at least some of your sources be scholarly or academic in nature. A scholarly source is characterized by academic inquiry, but in academic journals they are characterized more importantly by being peer reviewed. Articles are not published in scholarly journals unless a committee of their peers, fellow scholars, first determines that the article is a worthwhile contribution to the field. Books are not so easy: some books are scholarly, and some are not. So the next question is, how can you identify academic or scholarly sources and tell them apart from the rest? And what is the value of a "scholarly" source? Is is somehow more "credible" than another kind of source?
For example, a 14 year old can be credible for certain things (see below), and not everyone with a PhD is credible (there are people with PhD's who's views and opinions are rejected by many of their colleagues). And completely uncredible sources can still be very useful-I've seen academics use a novel, a work of fiction, as the source of some of theoretical ideas with useful real-world applications.
These complex issues show up in a tension between our purpose in this course and ways in which we can make use of texts. In other words, since we are not writing a high school-type research paper which only seeks to present facts and other people's ideas, the idea of the credibility of sources to be cited as authorities is no longer the only issue.
We are also looking for anything which can help us to attain our goal of producing something original-some new knowledge, insight, or understanding about the world, which is produced by using one set of ideas as a way to interpret, expand, or critique another set of ideas or data. For those students who will want to stress the importance of "credible" or "academic" sources, while I generally agree, I'm going to share something with you which might serve to complicate your ideas about what can be "credible" or "academic."
One of my face to face sections of EN 102 compiled a number of ways that one could "make use" of a source in their research writing. Some of the things on that list included:
- As an authority on a subject (be careful! Don't engage in PhD worshipping-their ideas can be re-interpreted, critiqued, or expanded too, or they might just not be right! But this is one use where credibility is an important factor)
- To provide "facts" and background information (another use where credibility is important)
- To "support" a position or opinion (be careful: Argument mode!)
- To express or support a "point" (be careful: Thesis mode!)
- As a source of ideas (even a NOVEL can bea source of ideas), key terms, or theoretical frameworks
- To help you explain a complicated concept or situation, to provide context for understanding something
- To "interpret, expand, and/or critique" the ideas of another text
- As data to be analyzed by applying a set of ideas in order to make sense of it (blogs, discussion boards, e-mail lists, personal narratives, interviews, all might be used this way--the 14 year old girl's blog is an appropriate source if it is data to be analyzed)
- As an example to illustrate an idea, process, or a way of thinking (or something else- and again, the infamous 14 year old girl's blog, which is not a "credible" source, could also be a useful example of something, or illustrate an argument you are making about how, say, teenage girls construct their self-image)
Ultimately, the most important way to "evaluate" a source is to determine what use you might make of it.
-Adam
