WRCM 112: Argument & Persuasion: Home

Here is a good, basic formula for getting started with your research:

• Begin by narrowing down your topic and developing an initial research question.
• Use the keyword brainstorming worksheet to help you tweak your research question, identify keywords and related terms, and keep track of what you find.  
• Search in a library catalog (Summon, OBIS, OhioLINK and/or WorldCat) to find books and reference sources.  These sources will:
  • provide BACKGROUND and CONTEXT
  • REVIEW and SUMMARIZE earlier work
  • help you FOCUS your topic and
  • provide CITATIONS to important books, journal articles, conference papers, interviews, etc.
• Next, search research databases to find articles. The library has hundreds of databases; those listed on this guide are good places to begin.
• You may also wish to use Google Scholar to search the Internet.  This is a great tool for doing cited reference searches.

This guide describes several techniques for evaluating source reliability that Oberlin librarians find useful. There are no hard and fast rules as to which technique works best for evaluating a source. The most important thing you can do to be a critical information consumer is to become familiar with at least two of these methods and build the habit of pausing to use them when you encounter new sources.

Remember, context matters! 

• Always think critically about how a source you are considering relates to your research question. Whether a source is reliable is not an immutable, fixed characteristic of the source. A recent biology paper studying the Ailuropoda melanoleuca genome is probably not a reliable way to get information about the experience of women in the Cold War! 
• Authority is constructed and contextual. Different people have expertise in different areas; sources have different strengths. No single source or expert is authoritative and reliable on every topic. Build the habit of looking at a variety of sources and thinking about whether the strengths of that source are relevant to your research question.
• Avoid taking what a source says about itself at face value. Always seek external confirmation of its claims and purpose. Some sources exist to mislead readers, or have a context that has changed since they were first created, and seeking outside information is the most reliable way to identify those circumstances. 

The Techniques: 

• ACTUP
• BEAM
• Lateral Reading
• SIFT
• WWWWH