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UGS 303: Science, Technology, Politics / Wellhausen

Using sources as evidence

Using sources as evidence

How information is created tells you what role it should play in your information gathering.

  • Newspaper: daily; current events and investigative reporting; journalists and reporters seek to be objective and unbiased
  • Magazine: monthly or weekly; personal interest stories and interviews; writers often write from a viewpoint shared by subscribers (liberal, conservative, religious, scientific)
  • Web-only sources: updated frequently; writers often write from a viewpoint shared by visitors; revenue is generated by online ad sales which rely upon number of clicks
  • Television news: daily/weekly; current events, investigative reporting and entertainment; hosts and reporters may be personalities speaking from a viewpoint shared by viewers
  • Academic journals: quarterly; research articles and data from experiments; authors are scholars and researchers at universities or private labs and companies; audience is other researchers in their field
  • Statistics: gathered by governments and organizations; always ask for what purpose

How research is communicated...

Primary research: Peer-reviewed articles written by authors (scientists or researchers) who actually performed an original experiment or are reporting their field observations, i.e., of organisms or medical patients. 

Secondary research: Peer-reviewed articles written by authors (also scientists and researchers) who summarize or discuss trends in the primary literature. In the sciences, these are called "review" articles.
 
Tertiary research: Non­‐peer-reviewed articles, books, newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, etc. These are often written by journalists who summarize the highly technical scientific literature for a general audience. They will reference or link to the primary research. 

drawing by Elise Nacca, 2016

How to Read Scholarly Articles

Scholarly Articles can be long and dense, but most scholarly articles have a structure. Once you understand the structure of the texts, they become easier to read and understand.

Components Key Points
Abstract  
  • Short summary of the article includes:
    • the research question being addressed
    • why it is worthwhile to conduct this study
    • how the study was conducted
    • the main findings of the study
Introduction 
  • Discusses main research contributions and knowledge on the topic
  • Positions the author's approach to the topic and identifies their unique contributions ("they say this, I say this")
Methods/ Methodology
  • Identifies approach / instrument used to conduct a study
  • Identifies how the author gathered the data analyzed in the study
  • May discuss limitations of the study
Discussion 
  • Analyzes the data collected or the results of the experiment
  • Includes tables, charts, etc. for data visualization
Conclusion 
  • Restates the problem addressed in the paper
  • Summarizes key takeaways from the research
  • Discusses the significance and implications of the research
  • Based upon these findings, suggests new approaches for studying the problem
References
  • List of research cited in paper

Not all research papers are organized in such a manner, but all research papers provide these components whether they are labeled thus or not.

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