Day 18: Choosing Sources

Today in class we will continue our discussion on how to the characteristics of appropriate sources for EAP essays. We'll review how to identify reliable sources, the distinction between "reliable" and "academic" sources and introduce additional criteria for consideration when choosing sources for your individual research papers (IRPs). Finally, if there is time, we'll discuss the specific requirements for our third major assignment: the annotated bibliography. 

An outline for today's class can be found below: 

Evaluating and Choosing Sources for Your Research Paper

I. Submitting the Pre-Research Portfolio via SafeAssign

Before we start class, please take a minute or two and re-submit your final "Pre-Research Portfolio" assignment through SafeAssign. All you need to do is download the assignment from your Dropbox folder, log into Compass 2G and upload the assignment under the "Pre-Research Portfolio" assignment heading. Thank you. 

II. Brainstorming

What are some adjectives that you would use to describe appropriate sources for an analytic research paper? Which are the most important? What is the difference between 'relevant' and 'reliable'? How about between 'reliable' and 'credible'? 'Reliable' and 'academic'? 

III. Choosing Reliable, Academic Sources

Has anyone found a source that they've decided is both reliable and academic? How do you come to your decision? Let's take a look at this presentation for a review of the characteristics of a reliable source. 

IV. Review of Search Techniques

Let's take a moment to review the search techniques listed here. At this point, an important thing to keep in mind is source relevancy. This means thinking about how the sources you choose will help you write your individual paper. One way to do this is to keep your outline with you while you do your search. That way, you can make the connections between your paper and the sources you want to use right away! Take a look at how I have divided up the rough outline for our demo topic here.

V. Practice Choosing Sources

Now, let's take some time to choose some sources for our demo topics. Below you will find four sources that deal with the demo and, more specifically, with the solution of choosing three year bachelor degrees. I want you to evaluate the sources using this document. Your goal: to choose the two best sources for the demo topic and the specific solution. 

As part of you search, you should be looking for the following criteria: 

-Relevancy: How is the source connected to the topic? More specifically, how is it connected to the solution? Does it offer a description? A critique? An improvement? 

-Purpose: With what purpose was the source article/essay written? To persuade? To inform? To analyze? To critique? Are there multiple purposes? 

-Readability: How easy is it to read the source? It is too long? Too short? Is there too much jargon? Is it too informal? 

-Possibility for Synthesis: Can you think of any ways to combine any of these sources? What kinds of patterns or similarities do you notice between any of the sources? 

Demo Topic Sources

Source 1: Examining the Push for Three Year Bachelor Degrees

Source 2: The Three Year B.A.

Source 3: Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much

Source 4: The Three Year Bachelor Degree: Reform Measure or Red Herring?

Housekeeping Details and Homework for Tuesday (10/29/2013)

-Find, evaluate and choose 5 reliable and academic sources for your IRP Topic. For each source, write a reliability statement. This should be between 2-3 sentences where you give a justification for the reliability of your source. Please put these statements into a MS word document and title it, "ReliabilityStatements_YourName". Please upload it to your Dropbox folder (in the folder titled "Annotated Bibliography Work") by Tuesday at 4:55pm. 

-Start filling out the "Finding Sources" chart (found here). Please fill it out for at least three of your sources and upload it to your Dropbox (in the folder titled "Annotated Bibliography Work") by Tuesday at 4:55pm.