Video of Evaluating Sources

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  Welcome to the Evaluating Resources,

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  asynchronous workshop. We're gonna go over things like how to find your sources,

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  how to evaluate if they're good sources

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  and things about how to cite sources.

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  All right. So the first things first,

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  how to find your sources,

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  you can find sources through the Crafton Hills Library.

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  Uh Here we have a link to the library page on the website.

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  Uh We also have research guides online, which you can find a link here as well

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  on how to

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  um get some advice on how to do research.

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  If you're looking for digital books in the library,

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  check the article databases as we can see them towards the top right of this panel.

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  Um You can look for a variety of sources, things like Epsco, which is good for

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  a number of different types of sources.

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  Mostly scholarly sources.

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  Us, new major newspapers can be used to look up

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  sources across five major newspapers.

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  Gale opposing viewpoints in context

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  has

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  uh resources on many different sources that are controversial in current topics,

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  films on demand has thousands of educational videos,

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  things like documentaries, uh recordings of speeches, things like that

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  depending on your class a Google scholar might be a choice that you might use as well.

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  So when you go to the library databases,

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  web page, keep these sources in mind as some you might use.

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  And

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  um we'll get into

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  the actual finding the sources next.

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  So no unf fighting sources,

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  there's various types of sources.

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  So depending on what kind of paper you're writing, what

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  types of sources you're looking for, that's gonna determine

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  how you conduct your research.

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  Your professor might assign you a research paper with a requirement for a

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  certain amount of scholarly sources and a certain amount of non scholarly sources.

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  So we're going to distinguish between

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  scholarly and non scholarly sources. Next.

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  So primary versus secondary sources,

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  a primary source is if you get that source

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  directly from the person who experienced the event,

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  so someone's firsthand experience like a reporter on the scene,

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  it could be someone's diary, a

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  document from a specific time period, an artifact or someone's direct knowledge,

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  a secondary source would be something like a book,

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  object article or text on a subject,

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  but it's not the original source of information.

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  So you might have someone wrote about an event that happened in the past,

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  but they weren't there for the event.

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  A secondary source may refer to primary sources and discuss them.

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  So we have a video here that gives an example

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  of

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  uh

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  some quotes from presidents,

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  but we can't play it because of copyright

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  when we're doing the prey

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  video.

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  So for scholarly and non scholarly sources,

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  we need to differentiate between them.

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  Scholarly sources are articles,

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  books and similar works that are written and peer reviewed by experts in the field

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  in college. Most scholarly sources

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  um

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  that professors want are peer reviewed articles.

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  So here we have an example

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  um of a peer reviewed article from gale opposing viewpoints in context

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  and

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  uh it even

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  indicates who wrote it. Where is it where it's from publisher?

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  And we have an abstract so we can decide if it's useful for purposes.

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  So

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  non scholarly sources are, are, is anything that isn't peer-reviewed, like a blog,

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  a website, television show youtube video or work of fiction.

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  There's a good chance that if you don't know if it's scholarly,

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  it's probably not scholarly.

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  Most of these sources that are scholarly, you're going to be looking from trusted

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  uh article databases like E

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  S

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  O

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  like uh Gale opposing viewpoints. And when you search

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  your topics and pull up that information,

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  it should say what kind of source it is.

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  If it says

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  academic journal or peer review journal, it's a scholarly source.

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  So when you read an article,

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  it can be quite long. So you might want to start with the abstract,

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  um the introduction and conclusion first and abstract

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  gives you an idea of what the article

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  is generally gonna be about and it'll give you a good sense if that is,

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  is what you're going for in your paper.

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  So the introduction will give you the argument or hypothesis being presented,

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  the conclusion

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  will give you the results or findings of an experiment.

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  Obviously, this is gonna vary a little bit because this is based around

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  a science journal. It's not about science,

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  it'll generally be look something like something similar. But

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  you know, if it's about literature, it might not be

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  posing a

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  hypothesis to be tested, it might be discussing a theme

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  to be discussed.

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  So as you go through and find your sources, you need to keep track of them.

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  So it would be good to take notes to maybe summarize them a little bit.

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  Look for relevant quotes you might use.

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  If you're citing article, article,

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  you can either directly quote your source or paraphrase it in your essay.

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  Um The one important note to make is that a lot of those

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  article databases like Epsco and Gale

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  and us newspapers have auto

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  cation features built in.

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  So I recommend if you find a source on one of those things

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  use the auto citation feature to pull up the citation,

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  save that for later so that you do not lose that source.

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  In a lot of cases, you can even email it to yourself um in

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  or save it in a folder depending on which article database you're using.

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  So you want to know whether or not the sources are biased or unbiased.

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  So biased sources

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  are very heavily

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  influenced by personal opinion.

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  Unbiased sources present the facts

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  and they aren't just gonna completely

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  argue based on emotion.

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  Uh But more so

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  bring up logical, um,

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  conclusions.

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  Some things to keep in mind when you're looking through sources is

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  uh our logical fallacies. So there are lots of types of fallacies. Here.

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  We see quite a few.

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  Um,

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  common ones are things like strawman where you present the opposition

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  and you defeat it easily because you make the opposition really

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  weak because you want to seem like your arguments better.

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  Um Slippery slope where you say one thing it will lead to the next,

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  which leads to the next, which leads to the next.

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  So anyone who agrees with

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  this thing is wrong and you make that thing,

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  something that maybe someone on the other side

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  is very likely to agree with.

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  So then they feel like they're not very smart,

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  which isn't a good way to form your opinion.

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  Um

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  But it makes it so you win an argument easily,

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  but we don't want to win arguments because

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  we use logical fallacies, we want to prove our point.

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  So

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  other things like bandwagon where you say, well, lots of people believe this.

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  So it must be right. Well, we need to prove that it's right based on the evidence.

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  Um Here, we have a few

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  um logical fallacy examples here like ad hominem black or white and false cause.

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  So keep those in mind as you're going through and reading these sources

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  some things that

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  sources do as they appeal to ethos, pathos or logos,

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  ethos is appealing to ethics.

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  They're trying to persuade the reader by building credibility and trust.

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  Pathos, appeals to emotion

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  to persuade the reader through strong emotions. Logos

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  use logic, you persuade the reader through evidence and research.

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  So

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  all of these might be present

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  in a source or one might be a lot more

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  um

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  heavily supported than the other. Just keep it in mind

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  as you're reading your sources.

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  One important thing to note is authority. So you wanna know

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  who wrote the source and why they are considered an expert in the field,

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  why we should give them

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  authority

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  um in terms of

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  whether or not the we should trust their

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  evidence and what they're presenting as true.

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  So if it's someone who has a phd in the field,

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  they probably have quite a lot of experience or

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  if they have 10 years experience in the field,

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  that means a lot. But if it's someone who maybe

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  just read an article

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  and is presenting an opinion,

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  they're not necessarily an authority,

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  maybe the article that they're referring to is a good source,

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  but that person themselves who just read it

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  probably not considered an authority in that field.

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  So here we have our work cited

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  um for the sources that we referred to in this presentation,

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  it is important that you also complete a work cited when you are

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  writing your paper.

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  If you have any other questions about

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  doing research

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  um about citing your sources,

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  about things like M L A or A P A format or even Chicago manual of style format.

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  Feel free to check out our other asynchronous workshops.

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  We also have D L A s on various topics and we have workshops

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  that you can sign up for online and in person

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  and thank you for attending the evaluating sources workshop.