2.4 Assessing Sources

Quickly assessing the nature and quality of a source has likely already become second nature to most students by their Dissertation, usually a check of relevance (i.e. is it something related to what I want to write about) and acceptability (i.e. can I use it without any issues). However, some additional thought and effort put into assessing sources for your Dissertation can pay off handsomely at the research stage.

If you are keeping a Research Diary or Working Plan, the questions below can help actively shape the direction of your research and the structure of your write-up. Remember that researching should be an active rather than passive process, you should be trying to engage with the academic literature (for your Literature Review) and your data rather than just passively collect information.

• Does the source/article/chapter directly answer my question?
• Is it from a reliable source or is contested?
• Is the information universally applicable or is it bound to a particular context?
• If it is bound to a particular context, is it genuinely applicable to my question?
• Has the author ignored any problems or issues?
• Does it refer to, or cite, another other sources I’ve read?

• Does the source/article/chapter directly answer my question?

This may be a simple question but it needs to be considered carefully. A well constructed dissertation will have a very specific question or set of questions that you are trying to answer, there will be a number of related and interested avenues that you simply cannot explore to remain well focused.

Ask yourself if the source is providing information that is directly relevant, i.e. does it directly fit under a specific heading of your Literature Review or specific heading in your Findings/Analysis chapters.

If it does not, i.e. it is related to one of your topics but is not directly addressing on the questions that you are asking, you should store it away in a separate part of your Working Plan or Research Diary so you can refer to it later if you need to use it but you are not allowing yourself to drift away from a tight focus on your research goals.

• Is it from a reliable source and is it contested?

Checking to see if a goal is reliable requires more than simply checking to see if it was published in an academic journal or if it comes from a reputable source. In order to write a high-quality dissertation you will need to engage with the academic literature in a more sophisticated manner.

One way to do this is to judge how well the information that you are concerned with is accepted within the literature. If a study is generally regarding as part of the academic consensus on an issue then it needs to be handled differently than if you have a study which is highly contested and contradicts several other studies.

In order to make this judgement you will need to understand the source's place within the field, this will require reading other work and studies that discuss your source. Using Spiderwebbing (Section 2.5) will aid you in this.

• Is the information universally applicable or is it bound to a particular context?

A common issue in weakly constructed arguments is a misapplication of studies outside of their useful context. For example, if we wish to argue that Iran poses a stark danger to the US today then citing Iranian policies in the 1950's would be largely irrelevant as a different regime and institutions with a different set of motivators and pressures were responsible for Iranian policy.

There is a need to make sure that information gained from a particular source is applicable to the context in which you wish to use it. You should not only check the relevant time period, involved parties, etc. but also the detail of any studies.

Studies, esp. when reported in the mainstream media, often do not foreground their specifics. A study finding that 55% of Europeans hold a negative view of nuclear power may have been conducted door-to-door with a dominant amount of over-60's and retirees responding. This may be of very limited use if your argument is focused on the perceptions of under-25's for example.

• If it is bound to a particular context, is it genuinely applicable to my question?

Nonetheless, information and studies that are bound to a different context may still be useful if handled in an appropriate manner. For instance, if you find information about a study on a different demographic group, as in the example above, that information can still yield value if presented in a way that draws out a contrast to other information that you have gathered.

You could present and contrast the generally negative view of nuclear power by over-60's with other studies that show more positive views of under-25's, emphasising the generational shift that has occurred.

• Has the author ignored any problems or issues?

You need to stay critical in both your Literature Review and your analysis of your findings, in both cases it is important to have a good idea of any internal problems (e.g. a flawed premise, limitations of studies) and external issues (e.g. conflict with other events, data or studies). Keeping note of these issues as you conduct your research in your Research Diary or Working Plan will help you draw these points together and write a critical Literature Review or Analysis section instead of simply summarising information in a basic manner.

• Does it refer to, or cite, another other sources I’ve read?

Lastly, it can prove very useful to keep track of the connections between your various data sources, especially for your Literature Review. Instead of seeing your sources as discrete units that exist alone, you should be trying to see an ongoing academic "conversation" that draws upon many strands and scholars. Your Literature Review in particular needs to build upon this understanding of the academic "conversations" to really engage with the material