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Evaluating Secondary Sources

  

Your instructor may have specific requirements for which kinds of secondary sources you are to use for any given assignment as well as where to find them. When writing research assignments for college that ask you to write analytically it is best to find articles, for example, that conduct in-depth, detailed analysis as well. As you know from Chapter 3 on reading, your own engagement with other texts—in research writing these are your sources—helps you come up with your own ideas and analytical insights. Therefore, you want to be sure to find and use the best secondary sources for your writing assignments because your own writing will be better, too.

To find the best, most useful secondary sources for your research writing assignment, you’ll need to engage in a process of evaluating your sources. This process begins as you identify which sources to consider using as you find them using college library resources. Ideally, download or retrieve two or three times as many sources as are required for the assignment. For example, if an assignment requires four secondary sources, find and then review a minimum of eight. Then, when you have that number of sources—again, more than are required—evaluate the sources as you read them.

What do you think you need to evaluate these sources for as you read them? Apply the following two general principles:

  • credibility
  • relevancy

Credibility is the degree to which the source can be trusted and its content believable. Using college library resources helps with this, as compared to searching Google. However, even if you, for example, find an article through your college research databases, you still need to evaluate for credibility. Is the article in the “guest opinion” section of the publication? Does it use and cite any sources to support claims?

After determining credibility, evaluate the sources you have found for relevancy. Is this source related to my specific topic? Does it help me answer my research question? Does it have data or evidence I can use and cite? Or, does it provide background and context information for the topic?

You can use the following questions adapted from Methods of Discovery – Online Writing Guide to determine how suitable each source you find is for a research project you are working on:

  • Scope. What topics and subtopics does the source cover? Is it a general overview of your subject or it is a specialized resource?
  • Audience. Who is the intended audience for the text? If the text itself is too basic or too specialized, it may not match the expectations and needs of your own target audience.
  • Timeliness. When was the source published? Does it represent the latest information, theories, and views on the subject? Bear in mind, though, that if you are conducting a historical investigation, you will probably need to consult older materials, too.

Read more about evaluating secondary sources in Methods of Discovery – Online Writing Guide.

TRY THIS to understand evaluating sources. Let’s say your research question for a writing project you are working on is the following: Should health literacy be taught in school and/or college (the same could be asked of other literacies such as financial, etc.)? You find the following two sources: Pfizer and JAMA.

Use the criteria above to evaluate the two sources for credibility and relevancy. Should you use one or both for that research writing project? If so, how? If not, why not?

Remember, you need to be very selective—very picky—in choosing which secondary sources to use for your research writing assignments. Most web sites found using commercial search engines like Google are actually primary sources; they have an agenda and don’t go in-depth enough, so they don’t give you much to work with for your writing projects, like the Pfizer one. Also, you may find a highly credible source through the library research databases, but it may not be relevant—not related to your research question. Or, it may have too much jargon as it’s written for experts and too difficult to understand. The JAMA article is a quality secondary source, but it’s not necessarily related to the research question.

After evaluating the sources you find, you can choose the best ones to use for your research writing assignment. However, while drafting—or even revising—you may realize that one or more of your sources just isn’t working. Or maybe you identify a gap and need to find additional sources. Remember that researching is part of the writing process after all, which means it is recursive and not linear. At any stage of your writing process for any given assignment, you may find yourself doing research. Maybe finding and using that last source for your final draft takes your good writing project and makes it exceptional.