Information sources2
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1) Students have an obligation to present authentic evidence to readers and properly cite sources. Common knowledge may not need citation, but new ideas, research findings, and unique ideas should be cited. 2) Direct quotations, ideas directly taken from sources, and facts/statistics must be clearly cited using a standard format like APA or MLA. 3) When evaluating websites for research, check the author's credentials, the accuracy and objectivity of the information, how current it is, and whether enough information is provided. Evaluate authors by searching for their other publications.
Information sources2
- 1. EVALUATING AND CITING SOURCES .
- 2. OBLIGATIONS As writers, students have the responsibility of presenting authentic and valid evidence to their readers.
- 3. REFERENCING It can be difficulty to determine which ideas needs to be referenced. In general, common sense notions, familiar to a reasonably educated audience do not need to be cited. Over time, many ideas that were once ‘new’ and therefore needed referencing have come to be commonplace. Reference new or revisionist ideas, findings from current studies or unique, unusual ideas.
- 4. CITATION Language directly from a source (quotations), original ideas taken directly from a source, facts, statistics or figures need to be clearly cited. Follow a prescribed format. Some departments prefer one over another. When in doubt, ask.
- 5. ISSUES WITH THE INTERNET Anyone can publish on the Internet Many of authorities have not published on the internet Web pages have agendas Home pages—personal opinions Commercially sponsored Sponsored by organizations
- 6. WHAT IS THE INTERNET? Databases like Academic Search Elite, or J-STOR are on the internet but the articles indexed there are not web sources per se.
- 7. EVALUATING WEBSITES (NON-DATABASE) Check sites for the following: Who authored it? Is it accurate? Is it objective (may use slanted sites, but use them for a reason)? Is the info timely? Is there enough info?
- 8. EVALUATING AUTHORS Is the author a professional? An expert on your topic? Run a quick Google search on author’s name (or organization) Run a search on Amazon for other published books. Look for a bibliography or works cited list. Other primary sources for you to check out.
- 9. ACCURACY Is the information reliable? Are there obvious mistakes? Is there an editor or someone who verifies/checks the information? Is the information recent? Who vouches for the material?
- 10. OBJECTIVITY Does the information show a minimum of bias? Are all experiments conducted properly? If the article is based on a single case, does the author link this case with other material on the topic?
- 11. TIMELINESS Is the source dated? Check the copyright date If it’s technical or scientific information, you will want current (less than 4 years old) Seminal works (those that influence an entire field) could be forty years old and still applicable.
- 12. CITATION All sources need to be integrated into your essay in coherent and consistent ways. There are many different ways to do citations. Your discipline probably has standard formats. Formats include APA, MLA and Chicago (among others).
- 13. IN TEXT REFERENCES – THE LITERATURE REVIEW The social and hard sciences typically include substantial literature reviews in APA form. Literature reviews should have the following: An overview of the subject, issue or theory being discussed. A general overview of the intellectual territory – what are the main controversial points and who has made them Explanation of how each work you review is similar to and how it varies from the others Conclusions as to which pieces of research are most convincing and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research
- 14. THE LITERATURE REVIEW Your literature review should: Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort Point the way forward for further research Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in the context of existing literature (USC Library Literature Review Help Page)
- 15. THE LITERATURE REVIEW Martin, Pescosolido & Tuch (2000) examined the effects of descriptions of the targets’ behavior, causal attributions about the source of the behavior, the target’s perceived dangerousness, labeling and participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. Twenty percent of the participants labeled a target described with depressed symptoms as having a mental illness (as compared with 54% for those described with schizophrenic symptoms or 1% with normal troubles); 37% would be unwilling to interact with the depressed person (48% for the schizophrenic and 21% for normal troubles); and 33% felt that the depressed person would do violence to others (61% for the schizophrenic and 17% for the normal troubles). Alexander and Link (2003) examined the stigma of mental illness, perceptions of dangerousness and social distance in a telephone survey. They found that, as a participant’s own life contact with mentally ill individuals increased, participants were both less likely to perceive a target mentally ill individual in a vignette as physically dangerous and less likely to desire social distance from the target. This relationship remained after controlling for demographic and confound variables, such as gender, ethnicity, education, income and political conservatism. They also found that any type of contact – with a friend, a spouse, a family member, a work contact, or a contact in a public place – with mentally ill individuals reduced perceptions of dangerousness of the target in the vignette. Corrigan, Rowan, Green, Lundin, River, Uphoff-Wasowski, White and Kubiak (2002) conducted two studies to investigate the strength of the theoretical relationship between stigma and personality responsibility, and stigma and dangerousness. Corrigan et al. posited two models to account for stigmatizing reactions. In the first model, labeled personal responsibility, personality responsibility influences both the level of pity and anger displayed toward mental patients. Additionally, the variables of pity and anger influence helping behavior. In the second model, labeled dangerousness, perceived dangerousness influences fear of mental patients, which in turn influences the avoidance of the mentally ill. In their first study, Corrigan etal. (2002), administered a questionnaire to 216 community college students. (adapted from http://www.york.cuny.edu/~washton/student/Org-Behavior/lit_rev_eg.pdf)
- 16. INTEGRATING SOURCES Outside of the lit review, sources should be integrated into your own discussion of the topic. Sources should be used sparingly to illustrate, defend, support, or challenge your argument (and occasionally to say things very elegantly).
- 17. INTEGRATING SOURCES Integrate sources into your discussion. Remember that this is your paper and that you should be in control of the discourse. Your essay, however, (both holistically and at the paragraph level) should reveal relationships among your sources as well as the relationships between your own ideas and those found in your sources. Begin and End in your own voice . Try to limit (not eliminate) the number of paragraphs that begin or end with quoted material. Use sources minimally in your introduction and conclusion.
- 18. INTEGRATING SOURCES Remember that direct quotations can be broken up into usable parts. “ Chimp language” according to Davis, “contains a remarkable number of abstract concepts (2008:56).”
- 19. INTEGRATING SOURCES Very rarely, you will want to use a block quotation – a chunk of text longer than 2 sentences. Block quotation should generally be set off from the rest of the by 5 spaces. You might occasionally want to use a diagram or chart from a source. Remember to include a note at the bottom of the chart describing where you got it. Remember to always interpret integrated sources in your own language.
- 20. INTEGRATING SOURCES Use transparent rhetorical strategies or reference ‘tags’ . Use ‘thinking aloud’ strategies as a scaffold for your essay. Summarize, contrast, qualify, evaluate, consider in your text.
- 21. TECHNOLOGY Referencing can be done automatically using referencing programs Endnote Zotero Even simple programs like Easybib, Son of Citation provide powerful ways to collect, organize and correctly reference your material.