Courses / English language arts / Research, editing and publishing / Choose sources for the claims they can support INVESTIGATION 2 OF 6 Choose sources for the claims they can support Evaluate provenance, purpose, method and relevance rather than assigning a source a single blanket credibility score.
Why learn this? A useful source for one question may be weak evidence for another.
Loading saved English work…
1. try 2. predict 3. experiment 4. understand 5. apply 6. continue Quick recap: Source evaluation asks who created a record, how, when, for what purpose and with what access to the facts. Corroboration requires sufficiently independent evidence, not repeated copies of one claim.
Lesson activities Choose your task depthHigh-school scaffold College extension Choose either at any time. Your drafts stay with you.
1. Try — read before judging Original fictional source packet. These are source descriptions and excerpts, not live websites. Use their labels as locators.
SOURCE A — volunteer intake log, event 1: 24 objects; 10 working at departure; 8 awaiting parts; 6 not repaired. Volunteers classified outcomes at closing; no follow-up. SOURCE B — organizer newsletter: “Our repair café rescued 24 items!” It cites the intake log and aims to recruit volunteers. SOURCE C — participant comment: “My lamp worked when I left, but it stopped again two days later.” One invited response; the packet gives no response rate. SOURCE D — repost: “24 items rescued,” copied from the organizer newsletter without independent observation. Go directly to the workbench
2. Predict — make a provisional choice Which sources are independent of the newsletter’s claim, and what does that independence still fail to establish? 0 / 16,000 characters · length is a storage limit, not a quality score 3. Experiment — test your reading Create cards for A, B and C. Record creator, collection method or purpose, exact wording, relevance and a specific limitation. In the draft, draw a text dependency map showing A → B → D. Explain why B and D are not two independent confirmations. Write a source-selection memo: identify the best source for departure status, one useful challenge and a claim requiring new evidence. Your source dossier Keep source wording, your paraphrase and your reasoning in separate fields. Locators are stored as plain text; the site does not fetch or verify them. Label fictional teaching sources as fictional.
Add source card (0/8) Additional source notes 0 / 16,000 characters · length is a storage limit, not a quality score Working draft / artifact 0 / 16,000 characters · length is a storage limit, not a quality score Keep this draft for comparison
Comparison draft Save your first version here before revising. It will remain unchanged while you edit the working draft.
Revision commentary: what changed, why, and what remains uncertain? 0 / 16,000 characters · length is a storage limit, not a quality score 4. Understand — connect choice and effect Evaluate a source in relation to a claim The intake log is useful for recorded departure status, assuming its categories were applied as described. It is not a direct record of later disposal. The organizer’s newsletter reveals how the event presents itself, but its rescue claim exceeds the cited log. The participant’s comment supplies one later experience, not a failure rate.
Ask who created the source, what access they had, how the information was collected and what purpose shaped its presentation. Do not reduce these questions to a label such as “biased, therefore useless.” An interested participant may know something firsthand. The task is to identify that knowledge and its limits.
Trace dependencies before counting corroboration. If the newsletter uses the log and the repost copies the newsletter, all three claims may rest on one record. Draw arrows from origin to reuse. Repetition increases visibility; it does not create independent observation.
Then test relevance. A source can be accurate yet fail to answer your question. A list of arrivals cannot establish repairs, and an account of one failed lamp cannot establish how all repairs performed. Missing response information also matters: you do not know who was invited, who replied or whose experience remains absent.
In the selection memo, assign sources roles rather than medals. Use the log to describe its measured outcome, the comment to raise a durability question and the newsletter to analyze an overclaim. Identify where a new source would change the evidence rather than simply repeat it.
Corroboration Support from additional evidence whose relationship to the original claim has been examined. Source dependence A relationship in which apparently separate accounts derive from the same underlying information. Worked example — a possible revision, not the only answer Before Three sources say 24 items were rescued, so the claim is confirmed. After The newsletter and repost trace back to the same intake log, which counts arrivals rather than avoided disposal. The participant comment challenges durability in one case but cannot establish a failure rate. Source count is not independent corroboration. An interested organizer can supply valuable records, but the record must support the particular claim.
Return to your workbench and reconsider a choice
5. Apply — make something and try a new case Your main artifact Make three cards and a 200-word selection memo. Explain one reason to use and one reason to limit each source.
Keep your artifact in the working draft above. Suggested lengths help you plan; they do not measure quality.
Unfamiliar passage Three news posts repeat one press release announcing a new scholarship. A university page lists eligibility rules; a student describes difficulty with the application. Choose sources for the award’s existence, eligibility and applicant experience. Identify which claims have independent corroboration and which do not. 0 / 16,000 characters · length is a storage limit, not a quality score Save transfer response 0 saved attempt(s).
Open discussion feedback 