Other publishers such as newspapers, magazines etc need to avoid legal action for libel (telling lies about someone) so also should be careful to print the truth. Publisher – Is the publisher reputable? Academic publishers need to maintain their reputation for accurate factual information so they also have editors to ensure a high standard. Journalists mostly operate within a professional approach especially large international newspapers such as the New York Times or the Guardian (UK)Authority can mean expertise. Similarly academic writers who are published in academic journals or books have to conform to standards and have their work checked by other academics. – Does the author have certain professional standards? The example of a doctor immediately comes to mind. To evaluate authority we can look at several aspects of the data source.Īuthor - Is the author an expert in the field? What qualifications do they have? For example an article on a website about HIV+ written by medical doctor might have more authority than one written by some one without qualification. We are looking at the question “Is it likely that this source can provide this data?” Reliability – Can the source provide the data?įor a source to be reliable we must evaluate the ability of the source to provide the information. Both elements are equal in importance in judging the accuracy and credibility of a source. For a data source to be accurate and credible high levels of reliability and validity is the aim. In evaluating sources there are two elements reliability and validity. A newspaper article is a primary source if it reports events, but a secondary source if it analyses and comments on those events. Sometimes is it always easy to distinguish primary from secondary sources. Secondary sources interpret and analyse primary sources examples might be text books, or journals which review others work. Secondary sources are less easily defined than primary sources.
Examples of primary sources are data gathered by a questionnaire, statistics of population from the Government census or a first report of a research experiment and its finding Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based. A research instrument can gather data from either a primary or secondary source
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