Tutorama: Week Ten: Judging the Power of Source Texts

One skill you need to develop as you become a college researcher is to distinguish between different kinds of sources. There are some obvious differences, such as those between a reference source and a periodical, but it's essential that you learn to make much finer distinctions between sources as you decide which texts are worth choosing from the IRIS list, which are worth taking out from the library, which are worth reading from cover to cover, and which are worth including in your paper. Of the millions of titles available through Rutgers University Library and the Internet, very few texts, perhaps as few as six, should make the final cut.

The Mountain of Authority

After you've found what appears to be a relevant source in IRIS or one of the periodical indexes, and after you have located the text in the library or on the computer, you need to spend enough time with it to judge whether it's worth more of your time. You might want to begin by using the following chart to evaluate whether the source you have chosen has enough power to be worthy of including in your paper. These are listed in descending order of authority.

• The Classic
  A source that founds or defines a discipline or kind of knowledge:
  The Bible, Darwin's Origin of Species, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex

• The Primary Source
  A source containing primary observations and analysis (written or edited by an expert):
  Original data, interviews with witnesses, historical records

• The Scholarly Secondary Source
  A source that relies on primary and other secondary sources written by an expert

• Popular Source Written by a Scholar for a General Audience
  Written by an expert for non-specialists

• Popular Source Written by a Generalist after Research
  Books or articles written by journalists or non-academic writers who researched primary and secondary sources

• Popular Source Written by a Generalist without Research
  Personal essays, editorials, statements of opinion

• Popular Sources of Unknown Origin
  Gossip rags, home video, anonymous testimonials

• Rumor, Hearsay, Tall Tales, Paranoid Delusions
  Hoaxes, folklore, conspiracy theories, wishful thinking

In Search of an Analytical, or Framing, Text

If you are looking for an analytical, or framing, text, you have made a good choice if you've located one of the following from the Mountain of Authority list:

• A Classic

• Scholarly Secondary Source

• Popular Source Written by a Scholar for a General Audience

Your instructor may allow you to use a Popular Source Written by a Generalist after Research, but, as you can see from the hierarchy, this source has less power than texts higher on the list. Choosing a weaker text will probably make your own argument weaker.

Distinguishing between Scholarly and Popular Sources

Consider how you could distinguish between the Scholarly Secondary Source and the Popular Source Written by a Scholar for a General Audience. A scholarly text may be published by a university press. It will certainly have a complex argument and it will probably use an academic vocabulary because the writer envisions the audience as a group of colleagues who already use the vocabulary of the field. Such a text will have a lengthy and valuable list of footnotes or works cited. A popular source, by contrast, will probably not be published by a university press. The argument and its language may be less complex and it may contain a general introduction to the issues or arguments under discussion. This text should, like the scholarly text, reveal the sources the writer consulted to build the argument, though the footnotes or works cited may not be as extensive.

Many of the same signals will help you to distinguish between scholarly and popular periodicals. In addition, you can check the frequency of publication. Academic journals are rarely published more than 12 times a year, and many are published less frequently (bi-monthly or quarterly). Newspapers and news magazines (such as Time, Newsweek), and other periodicals you can buy at a typical newsstand, are popular sources.

For advice about how to evaluate Internet sources, visit the Research Depot at the Writing Program's 201 page. To get started, visit the Rutgers University Libraries Home Page.