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Writing with Purpose

2

Finding, Evaluating, and Incorporating Sources

· Introduction

· Finding Sources

· Evaluating Sources

· Incorporating Sources

· Conclusion

· Chapter Review

· Key Terms

· References

Chapter 2 Finding, Evaluating, and Incorporating SourcesBy Dr. Thomas Skeen

Introduction

In Chapter 1, a variety of invention strategies were introduced that help writers develop ideas about which they can write. This chapter supplements the previous one by focusing on another important set of strategies for developing ideas and incorporating them into writing: strategies that help writers to find, evaluate, and incorporate  sources .

Finding Sources

Research  is an intellectual activity that should go beyond the use of only the first few sources one finds. Writers of any type—academic, journalistic, popular, or professional—should practice  active inquiry . In other words, they should find an interest in seemingly uninteresting things, develop a personal stake in an issue, and focus on problems that matter to both the writer and others.

Developing Research Questions

Good questions help writers engage a topic beyond simply reporting facts. To develop effective research questions, a writer must consider whether the questions:

· pique the writer's interest,

· focus on problems, and

· reveal the potential for gain, risk, or loss.

Not all good questions will meet all of the above criteria, though the criteria provide a focus.

For example, suppose a student wants to write a paper about e-cigarettes, and he or she develops the following set of research questions:

1. How do e-cigarettes work?

2. What kinds of chemicals do e-cigarettes contain?

3. Who uses e-cigarettes and why?

4. Is there proof that e-cigarettes are harmful or not harmful?

5. Do e-cigarettes cause the same kinds of diseases that cigarettes do, such as cancer or emphysema?

6. Are e-cigarettes a gateway drug? Will they lead to substance abuse?

7. Why can e-cigarette commercials appear on television while ads for regular cigarettes cannot?

Notice that the first few questions delve into facts about e-cigarettes, but the last several questions launch into controversial, debatable questions that do not have easy answers.

Exercise 1: Develop Research Questions

Select a controversial topic and use it to develop some good initial research questions. To generate your list of questions, try writing ones that lead to factual answers as well as questions that lead to controversy and debate. Think of the current problems about which you may have heard. Consider similarities between your topic and a related one. Think about everyday encounters that people like you have with your topic and what problems they may encounter.

Make a List of Keywords

To execute a successful search, good writers develop a list of search terms. Developing a list is the best approach; it has the potential to help the writer conduct a thorough and effective search. Although developing a good list of search terms takes time, it will not be a waste of time. A list of search terms should:

· be related to the specific research questions generated earlier for the purpose of research,

· include synonyms of important words in the research questions, and

· be as expansive as possible so that the researcher can try different combinations of words to get good results.

The sample questions above about e-cigarettes would provide the researcher with many opportunities to establish some keywords. For example, one can construct library searches that include the following keywords: e-cigarettes, gateway drug, chemicals, emphysema, cancer, substance abuse, advertising, cigarettes, and use.

After developing a list of keywords, it is a good practice to review the list and think of alternative words that have similar meanings. This will help a writer conduct a more thorough search. For example, one might add the following to the sample list about e-cigarettes: terminal illness, commercials, television commercials, tobacco companies, vaping, electronic cigarettes, lung cancer, and nicotine.

The first set of keywords helps the writer begin research. The second set, when combined with the first, helps the writer expand the search to find additional material.

Exercise 2: Make a List of Keywords

Based on your questions from Exercise 1, develop a list of keywords in two stages. In the first stage, list the words that seem to be the most important words from your questions. In the second stage, try to add alternative words that could be used as substitutes for the words you listed in the first stage.

Using Keywords to Find Resources

Research at the library is not unlike a Google search, as both can yield good information; however, library searches have distinct advantages over popular Internet search engines, such as Google. Library searches have distinct advantages over popular Internet search engines, such as Google.Most universities subscribe to scholarly databases that hold a variety of copyrighted articles that are not available online. In addition, many of the databases carry  peer-reviewed  research articles—discipline-specific scholarly articles that top scholars in their respective disciplines have reviewed for criteria such as accuracy and rigor. Other useful material, such as newspaper articles that are often also available online, can be found in the library in an organized, searchable database, the likes of which cannot be found on the Internet.

At this point, the writer is in a very good position to find a rich set of resources for his or her paper. All the writer needs to do is go to the  library  and begin searching for combinations of keywords. For additional help on how to use keywords, watch the " Library Walk Through Tutorial " and pay close attention to Section 3 "Accessing Articles and Books."

Evaluating Sources

Frames of Communication

A writer must make judgments about the material that he or she finds and wants to use. A good writer must make judgments about a source's  credibility  because any piece of human communication is, by necessity, “framed” in a certain way; any piece of human communication cannot contain all angles, all points of view, or all facts. By its very nature, language is limited. Theorist and literary critic Kenneth Burke (1984) argued as much in his book Permanence and Change when he stated that “every way of seeing is also a way of not seeing” (p. 70). Burke (1961) stated the same basic idea in other terms in a different book, Attitudes Toward History, when he explained that “every insight contains its own special kind of blindness” (p. 41). Burke's idea here is that the use of language (and other forms of communication) necessarily includes certain ideas or attitudes at the expense of alternative ideas and attitudes. In other words, when it comes to writing, there is never such a thing as the whole picture.

Thus, writers frame ideas all the time and in a variety of ways, and writers can use many clues to evaluate a piece of writing, such as the following:

· the language an author chooses to describe something;

· the evidence the author chooses;

· ideas that the author either includes or leaves out;

· visuals an author includes; and

· the degree of emphasis an author places on something in sentences, paragraphs, sections, or the work as a whole.

For additional help in evaluating sources for credibility, please review the “Research and Sources” section of the  Writing Process.

Exercise 3: Evaluating Sources

Choose at least two potential sources from your own research and write a short report about them that explains how the author frames the issue. Use the following questions as a guide:

· What descriptive language does the author use, and how might that language encourage a reader to feel or think about the subject matter?

· What evidence or other information does the author choose to include?

· What evidence or other information does the author choose to leave out?

· What visuals does the author use, and how do those visuals encourage a reader to think about the issue?

· What degree of emphasis does the author place on various ideas in sentences, paragraphs, sections, or the work as a whole?

Incorporating Sources

An  in-text citation  has three parts: an introduction to the quote, the quote or paraphrased text itself, and an additional piece of information that would help the reader find the quote. One might think of these three parts as a head, a body, and a tail.

Introducing Quotes and Paraphrases According to Purpose

The head, body, and tail should not only be well written and flow nicely, the introduction to the quote—the head—should cue the reader as to the purpose of the quote, to shape the reader's perception of the quote, or even to shape the reader's perception of the writer. Here are some examples that show how a writer might introduce quotes in ways that reflect different purposes.

Table 2.1

Adjusting In-Text Citations According to Purpose

Adjusting In-Text Citations According to Purpose
Purpose	Head	Body	Tail	Complete quote or paraphrase
To draw a reader’s attention to the credibility of the source	Andres Martin (2000), a child psychologist who has studied the reasons why teenagers sometimes get tattoos, explains that	“Adolescents and their parents are often at odds over the acquisition of bodily decorations. For the adolescent, piercing or tattoos may be seen as personal and beautifying statements, while parents may construe them as oppositional and enraging affronts to their authority”	(p. 143).	Andres Martin (2000), a child psychologist who has studied the reasons why teenagers sometimes get tattoos, explains that “Adolescents and their parents are often at odds over the acquisition of bodily decorations. For the adolescent, piercing or tattoos may be seen as personal and beautifying statements, while parents may construe them as oppositional and enraging affronts to their authority” (p. 143).
To emphasize the type of research in the article and its relevance to the author’s argument	An anecdotal study by a child psychiatrist included	the stories of two teenagers, “A” and “B,” who had spent significant amounts of time planning for tattoos and thinking about the meaning they hoped to communicate with them	(Martin, 2000, pp. 143-144).	An anecdotal study by a child psychiatrist included the stories of two teenagers, “A” and “B,” who had spent significant amounts of time planning for tattoos and thinking about the meaning they hoped to communicate with them (Martin, 2000, pp. 143-144).
To critique or disagree with the source	Although Andres Martin (2000) argued that	“relatively reversible [markings], such as piercings, can at a later time scaffold toward the more radical commitment of a permanent tattoo”	(p. 144), one may be hard-pressed to prove that a decision to get piercings can lead to later decisions to get tattoos.	Although Andres Martin (2000) argued that “relatively reversible [markings], such as piercings, can at a later time scaffold toward the more radical commitment of a permanent tattoo” (p. 144), one may be hard-pressed to prove that a decision to get piercings can lead to later decisions to get tattoos.

For additional help with formatting citations in the American Psychological Association (APA) style, please watch the " APA Formatting Tutorial. "

The Importance of Citing Sources

Including in-text citations is as necessary to the writing process as a pen and paper or a laptop and a word-processing program. Not giving attribution to the source of information used in a writer's paper is  plagiarism . Properly citing sources ensures writers do not inadvertently take credit for ideas that are not their own. Each source cited within a writer's paper is added to the  references  list, which appears at the end of a paper. References are listed alphabetically and adhere to the APA format. The primary purpose of these lists is to help readers locate a source that the writer of a paper used. For additional information, refer to Section 7 " Citing Sources " of the Writing Process website.

Exercise 4: Writing In-Text Citations in Three Different Ways

Part I

Using the same quotation or paraphrase from a single source you have found, try writing three different heads, bodies, and tails to reflect three different purposes. You may borrow the purposes listed in Table 2.1, or you may develop your own. As you write your in-text citations in three different ways, try varying the language you use so that you may characterize the source in different ways. Give readers clues about the purposes for which you are using the source. Also consider varying where you place information. In the examples above, the author's name and year appear in the head for the first and third examples, but they appear in the tail in the second example. Note that the author (or organization, if there is no author) and year must always stay together in the GCU and APA formats.

Part II

Now that you have had an opportunity to practice writing in-text citations, try placing some in a draft of a current paper you are writing.

Conclusion

Good research is more than a fact-finding process; it is a process of deeply intellectual engagement with the topic about which one is writing. By developing key words for library searches, writers can conduct thorough searches for source material, putting themselves in a position to use the best sources they find, rather than the first few sources they find. While practicing incorporating sources, a writer must use the APA format correctly, but the writer must also shape a reader’s perception of a source.

Chapter Review

· To develop good research questions, writers must consider whether the questions pique the writer's interest, focus on problems, and matter in some way so that people from differing backgrounds would have a stake in them.

· Writers need to generate keywords based on research questions to conduct library searches.

· A list of search terms should be related to the specific research questions, include synonyms of important words in the research questions, and be as expansive as possible so that the researcher can try different combinations of words to get good results.

· There are a number of clues writers can use to evaluate the credibility of a piece of writing.

· When incorporating sources into prose, a writer needs to include an introduction to the quote or paraphrase, the quote or paraphrased text itself, and an additional piece of information that would help the reader find the quote.

· All quoted or paraphrased information from a source must be accompanied by an in-text citation and a listing in the references page.

Key Terms

Active Inquiry: The process of developing a strong research agenda driven by the writer's interests, the need to solve real-world problems or controversies, and the needs of stakeholders with differing backgrounds.

Credibility: The credibility of a source depends largely on whether an audience will accept the source as authoritative or truthful. Although different audiences may assign different degrees of credibility to the same source, sources typically achieve credibility through the expertise or political views of their authors, their perceived amount of bias, and their use of acceptable evidence.

In-Text Citations: The inclusion of borrowed material within the body of a text. In-text citations typically include a “head,” “body,” and “tail” to introduce the source, provide a quote or paraphrase, and follow up with additional information (such as page numbers or paragraph numbers).

Peer-Reviewed Articles: Discipline-specific scholarly articles that top scholars in their respective disciplines have reviewed for criteria such as accuracy and rigor

Plagiarism: The act of using material from a source without indicating the material’s source.

References: A formatted list of sources from which information was used to develop the writer's essay.

Research: The process of informing oneself about a topic and then selecting material to include as evidence in a paper.

Sources: Any pieces of outside information that are borrowed and used as references in a paper. Although the library is the first place one should go to look for sources, material found outside the library also counts as a source if it is referenced in a paper. It is important when looking for sources to assess their quality.

References

Burke, K. (1961). Attitudes toward history. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. (Original work published 1937).

Burke, K. (1984). Permanence and change. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Original work published 1954).

Martin, A. (2000). On teenagers and tattoos. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 9(3), 143-144, 150.