Exploring and Evaluating Sources

Bias is not the same as wrong

There are five standard tests for whether a source can be trusted, and you will meet them as a list: accuracy, authority, currency, bias and purpose. Lists get memorised and not used. Here is the idea that makes them work, and almost everybody gets it wrong. A source having a position does not make it inaccurate. A campaign group that obviously wants one outcome can publish figures that are completely correct. A source with no visible agenda at all can be out of date, badly researched, or repeating something it never checked. So knowing who made something tells you WHAT TO CHECK, not what to believe. That one shift saves you from the two standard mistakes: throwing away anything that has a point of view, and trusting anything that sounds neutral. The question to carry through this module is therefore not is this good or bad. It is: what would I have to check in order to use this? Note that this is a different job from the one you do in history, where a source is questioned for what it reveals about the world of the person who made it. Here, you are deciding whether to act on something now.

The five tests, said precisely

You will be asked to apply these by name, so it is worth having them exactly rather than approximately. The last one is the most useful and the least used.

Two that test whether it is CORRECT

Five questions you might ask about a source. Tap the TWO that would tell you whether what it says is actually right, rather than which way it leans.

• Who paid for this to be produced?
• Does it say where its figures came from, so I could look them up myself?
• What does whoever made this want me to do afterwards?
• Does anybody with no stake in this report the same thing?
• Does it sound emotional or measured?

The campaign group and the leaflet

A group campaigning to keep a bus route open publishes a leaflet. It states that the route carries a certain number of passengers each week, and gives the transport authority report the figure came from. How should you treat it?

• Treat the figure as usable once you have checked it against the report it cites, while expecting the leaflet to have chosen which true facts to include
• Discard it, because a campaign group is a biased source
• Accept the figure without checking, because they have cited an official report
• Judge it by whether the leaflet sounds reasonable or angry

Two different faults

These get run together constantly, and separating them is most of the skill. A source can have either, both, or neither.

Five sources, five different things to check

How to check a source, in order

You have found something you might use in a piece of work. Put the checks in the order that saves you the most time.

• Work out what it was made for, which is usually visible in seconds
• Find out who produced it and whether they are placed to know
• Check how old it is, and decide whether age matters for your question
• Try to trace its central claim back to wherever it came from
• See whether anybody with a different position reports the same thing
• Decide what you can use it for, which may be narrower than what it claims

What a strong evaluation looks like

Three habits separate an answer at the top of the range from one that has learned the five words. Never evaluate a source in the abstract. A source is not reliable or unreliable in itself; it is usable or not usable FOR A PARTICULAR QUESTION. The same eleven-year-old report is worthless for one question and the best evidence available for another. Say what you would check, not just what is wrong. Naming a weakness gets you part of the way. Saying what would settle it, and what you would then be able to claim, is the answer. ⭐ And do not treat having a position as a verdict. Writing that a source is biased and stopping there is the single most common way to lose marks on this topic. Say which way it leans, say what that means you should expect to be missing, and then say whether the specific claim you want to use survives that. A candidate who can use a source with a position, carefully, has understood something the checklist cannot teach.

Which of the five tests

For each question you might ask about a source, decide which of the five tests it belongs to. Three lives.

Two people describing the same car

Somebody is selling a car. They tell you it has had one owner, a full service history, and new tyres last month. Every word of that is true. Then you ask a mechanic to look at it. They tell you it has had one owner, a full service history, new tyres last month, and that the rear suspension will need work within the year. Also all true. Neither of them lied to you. The difference is what each of them was doing. One was trying to complete a sale, so they said true things that help a sale happen. The other was being paid to find problems, so they looked for problems. If you had asked the seller directly about the suspension, you would very likely have got an honest answer. ⭐ And notice what this means in practice: the useful move was not deciding who to trust. It was working out what each one was FOR, and then asking the second one the question the first one was never going to volunteer.

What makes an evaluation worth marks

A student has written that a source is biased and therefore unreliable. Select every change that would genuinely improve it.

• Saying which way it leans and what they would therefore expect to be missing
• Saying what they would check in order to settle it
• Saying what the source could still be used for, and for what it could not
• Saying more firmly that the source cannot be trusted
• Pointing out that the source uses emotional language

Finish the evaluation sentences

Whether what a source says is actually correct, and whether it tells you where its information came from, is its _____. Whether whoever produced it is in a position to know is its _____, and being well known is not the same thing. How recent it is, and whether that matters for your particular question, is its _____. A leaning towards one conclusion is _____, and it tells you which way an error would run rather than that there is one. What the source was made for is its _____, and it is the most useful of the five tests because answering it makes the others easier. The habit that turns all of this into marks is saying what you would _____ rather than simply naming a weakness.

Build the evaluation

A student is evaluating a report published by an organisation that campaigns on the issue it is reporting. Assemble the sentence that would earn most.

One question, four sources

A student is finding out whether young people in their area have enough places to go in the evening. Each stage hands them a source and a decision. Every source here is invented for the exercise.

• They find a survey run by a local youth organisation, which asked its own members. It reports that most young people want more evening provision. Decide how to use it.
• They find a council report with detailed figures on facilities. It was published nine years ago. Decide.
• They find a confidently written article with no author named, which makes a striking claim and cites nothing. It matches what they already believe. Decide.
• A classmate says the safest approach is to use only neutral sources with no point of view. Decide what to say.

Evaluate a source properly

Choose any question about your own area that you could investigate, and imagine you have found one source that clearly wants a particular answer. Explain how you would evaluate it and what you would do with it.

• State your question, and say what the source is and who produced it
• Say what it was made FOR, and what that leads you to expect
• Explain why having a position is not the same as being inaccurate
• Name TWO specific things you would check, and say what each would settle
• Say what you would be able to use the source for afterwards, and what you would not
• Finish by explaining why refusing to use any source with a point of view would leave you with almost nothing