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ENGL 101 - English Composition I - Keiter

Rhetorical Triangle

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Rhetorical Triangle

You can use the rhetorical triangle to evaluate information. 

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Author

Look at the competence and expertise of the author in the area they are writing. 

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Audience

Consider who the information is written for and whether you fit into that group.

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Purpose

Use the context of where the information is found as well as the context within which it was written.

Scholarly and Popular Sources (HACC Video)

Scholarly vs. Popular Transcript

Your instructor has asked you to find scholarly articles for your research paper, now what? In this video, we're going to examine three elements to evaluate whether a source is suitable for our purpose of writing a research paper. Every piece of communication has an author, a target audience, and a purpose to the information they're trying to communicate. When we look at that in the context of a scholarly journal article, we can see that as a group, these journals have a fairly serious tone. The covers are informative and not flashy. Let's look inside a scholarly journal at one of the articles. Here is one scholarly article. As we can see this article is 15 pages long. When we look at the author's they tend to be experts, researchers, and scholars in their field. We see here, the authors are affiliated with universities. The authors are writing for an audience of other researchers, scholars and students in that field. These journals are often publishing valuable information for their target audience such as original research studies. Their purpose is to educate and inform. Therefore, these articles are typically longer than five pages since the studies produce a lot of data to fully explain their methods, findings, and conclusions. Because they are writing with a specific audience in mind, they use the specialized vocabulary of that subject field. So if you're a newcomer to this field, you may find it challenging to read and if there are graphics or images included in them, it's because they contribute to understanding the content of the article. They also always include a reference list or bibliography that shows where they got their information from. Now, let's examine author, audience, and purpose in popular sources. These publications have a very different focus than the scholarly ones. We can immediately see the covers are designed to be eye-catching and appealing. When we look at an article in a magazine, we see the authors may be writers with an interest in the topic, but not necessarily experts on that topic. These writers are in the business of selling magazines. Therefore, they seek the widest audience possible, with entertainment and advertising being a purpose of these publications. They want to grab and keep their readers' attention. So the reader will continue to read the publication and hopefully purchase it or some of the advertised products. The purpose of these articles is generally to inform but also entertain. Therefore, the articles are short and engaging often including catchy images and titles. They don't bog down the reader with things like references. They are not going to include original research studies. But they may say things like researchers have found or a recent study. Then summarize the findings in an easy to digest takeaway. As a result you're not going to see a lot of scientific language in these articles because they are gearing the writing toward a non-specialized audience. It's not that this article is bad per se, but it doesn't fit our purpose or our target audience when writing a research paper. Popular articles that reference original research studies may be used as stepping stones to the scholarly articles which contain the research studies. You can use the information found in the popular article, like researchers name, to locate the original source. So just to wrap up, you can use this approach to evaluate any source you come across to determine whether or not it meets your academic research needs. If you would like more information on how to effectively search, check out our other videos or ask a librarian for help.

SIFT Method for Evaluating Sources

SIFT is a series of steps to take when evaluating the reliability of web sites and their claims. It is based on an approach used by professional fact-checkers, and was developed by Mike Caulfield from Washington State University.

Each letter in SIFT stands for one of the steps:

  • Stop!
  • Investigate the Source
  • Find Better Coverage
  • Trace Claims, Quotes and Media to the Original Source

SIFT

When you see a web site that you are considering using or sharing, stop and ask yourself:

  • Do you know and trust the author or organization that published the web site?
  • What do you know about the reputation of the web site, or about the claims it makes?

Don't use the source until you have found out more about its content, its creator, and its publisher.

Watch the video below, which highlights the importance of verifying your sources, and then proceed to the next step (Investigate).

The quality of your research is determined by the sources you use. Investigate a source by leaving that web page and looking for information about the source elsewhere. Check several different places before deciding if the source is reliable.

Watch the short video [2:44] below to learn about some of the best ways to investigate a source. Proceed to the next step: Find Better Coverage.

Oftentimes the source of information you come across is not important, even if the claim itself is. What that means is, we can try and find the information we're looking at in other sources. This helps to both verify whether the information is true and to find a better, or more trusted, source of coverage.

"Trusted coverage" can mean:

  • A track record of accurate reporting
  • A reputation for minimizing bias in reporting

These can be determined through various online tools, such as the Media Bias Chart or the resources located in the Fact Checking Websites box on the Fake News -- Checking Sources page.

As you work through SIFT more, you can build up a list of trusted sources that can become your "go-to," saving you even more time in searching.

Many times the information we encounter is stripped of its context, which can distort its meaning. It's important to trace claims, quotes, and media back to their original source so that you can understand the context and ensure the information is being presented accurately.