Chapter 6: Evaluating Sources

What You Will Make

Complete one source record with a use decision: use for this claim, investigate further, or leave out. The decision concerns a particular claim. A source can help answer one question and be unsuitable for another.

Examine the Evidence Behind the Claim

Record who created the source, its purpose, date, and where its evidence comes from. Look for the original passage, report, or data behind a summary. When checking an unfamiliar publisher, consult an independent account of it rather than relying entirely on its own description.

Ask what was actually observed and what the writer concludes. A polished layout, a confident title, or an impressive affiliation cannot fill a missing connection between those two things. Follow any source-type requirements in your assignment.

Compare Two Teaching Sources

Fictional practice materials: A garden supplier’s advert says its kits make every student a better scientist. A classroom log records plant heights for one class over four weeks. Neither is a real source to cite in an assignment.

The advert offers a broad educational claim but supplies no assessment of learning in this example. The log could support a statement that this class recorded growth over time. It cannot, by itself, establish that the students learned more than another class or that a garden caused the improvement.

Careful decision: “Use the log to describe the activity. Do not use it to claim improved science achievement.” To examine achievement, you would need evidence that actually measures learning and helps assess the explanation, within your assignment’s scope.

Try It Yourself

Take a source you found and complete these sentences: “The source directly shows…”; “I want to claim…”; “The gap between those statements is…”. Record the exact passage or table, not only the homepage link.

If the gap is large, narrow your claim or seek better evidence. If the original evidence is unavailable, record that limitation instead of treating someone else’s summary as inspected data.

Check Your Work

• Have you identified the creator, date, purpose, and evidence?
• Can you locate the detail that supports your intended sentence?
• Does your conclusion stay within the source’s scope?
• Have you distinguished independent confirmation from several pages repeating the same claim?

An unanswered question is a reason to investigate, not a reason to invent missing support.