Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The Bedford Researcher Chapter 5: Summary and Discussion

Chapter five of The Bedford Researcher covers source evaluations and ways to utilize a source based on the evaluation. When we examine a source, we review evidence, author, publisher, timeliness, genre and comprehensiveness. Page 88 has a useful table that includes questions regarding source evaluation. The way we assess one source may be very different from how we analyze the information in other sources. Classification of genre, for example, helps us categorize how to use our information accordingly. A working bibliography with a variety of sources will ultimately allow a writer to narrow things down and focus on pertinent information useful to arguing for the position statement.

We have been covering source evaluation in class over the last week and a half and chapter five was complementary to those lectures. The questions in the table on page 88 allow a writer to conduct a source evaluation in a organized fashion and establish whether a source will be useful and, if so, how to utilize the source in the paper. I didn't think chapter 5 brought anything new to the table, given that we've been reviewing evaluation steps in class and conducting source evaluations for the last three class periods. The chapter did crystallize all those steps into a sequence, though, which may reinforce the methodology we should practice when handling potential sources.  

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