Information is everywhere! In the age of 'fake news', evaluating the information you use is essential to ensuring you are using the best, reliable and accurate sources. It is important not to limit yourself to Google and to use a wide range of good, reliable academic (scholarly) sources available to you through the library. The CRAAP Test is one of the tools that can help you decide which resources are best for your project.
Knowing what information you need for your project will help you decide the best place to search for it.
Books and e-Books are essential resources for your studies:
Advantages of Books include:
E-Books also have added capabilities:
Disadvantages include:
E-Books have further disadvantages:
You have access to a number of different journals, magazines and databases in college. They tend to be one of 3 types:
Scholarly - (e.g. Business Review,)
Written by subject experts, formal style and subject specific language and contain references and bibliographies
Professional - (e.g. Nursing Times)
Relate to current issues in the profession and also contain information about services or products.
Popular Magazines - (e.g. New Scientist)
Information tends to be second or third hand and is for entertainment as well as information.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Newspapers can provide different perspectives on topics in which there have been recent developments, or to allow the examination of an issue over a period of time.
They can be a useful source of primary Information about current and historical events, but can also be used as a secondary source as they contain retrospective articles and commentaries relating to events.
When using newspapers, you will need to consider the intended audience, ownership and editors.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Newspapers tend to be divided into 2 types:
Broadsheets - e.g. Financial Times, Guardian, Times
Contain information on current affairs and tend to have longer articles containing more considered arguments
Tabloids - e.g. Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun
Contain simpler language, often with sensationalist content.
The web as a resource is the most accessible and familiar sources of searching for information. However, you do need to apply critical thinking to all the resources you find.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Television
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Statistics are everywhere and can be useful to provide numerical data to back up or prove a statement. Using and interpreting data from an original research article, or from the ONS can gain you higher marks.
However, statistics can be easily misinterpreted or manipulated as this video from TEDEd explains.
Watch this video for a quick explanation of the differences between primary and secondary sources.
For your project you may be asked to undertake both primary and secondary research. It is simpler to think of it as data collection.
Primary Research / data collection = data you have collected yourself
Secondary Research / data collection = data which has already been collected by others
Your secondary research will inform what you need to do for your own data collection (primary research). It is essential to first examine and analyse secondary data (research) to understand the issues and data surrounding your topic.
When writing up your project, it is important you do not just refer to your own primary data collection results. You must also draw on the secondary research data, as your results alone are unlikely to give you sufficient evidence to prove or disprove your theory, assumption or hypothesis.