Week 16: Week 16 — Evaluating Sources
Week of Mon, Jan 4 · week closes Sun, Jan 10
This week's items
Exact due times are in Canvas. Late work accepted at 10% per day; assessed work not accepted late. Vocabulary quizzes are unannounced and cannot be made up.
Know these cold
- Source evaluation asks four core questions: Is this accurate? Is the author credible? Is this current enough to support the claim? Is it directly relevant to the argument?
- Primary sources are original documents, data, or artifacts: legislation, speeches, studies, letters, photographs. Secondary sources interpret or analyze primary sources.
- A peer-reviewed source has been evaluated by other experts in the field before publication. This process reduces the likelihood of unchecked errors but does not guarantee correctness.
- Bias is not automatically disqualifying — all writing reflects a perspective — but undisclosed or extreme bias weakens a source's credibility for argument purposes.
- Currency matters for empirical claims: a 2004 study on internet behavior is less reliable for current patterns than a 2024 study. For historical claims, older primary sources may be more authoritative.
- A footnote or endnote traces a specific claim to its source. Following the citation chain from a secondary source to the primary source is a critical research skill.
- Paraphrasing restates an idea in your own words while accurately preserving the meaning and crediting the original. Paraphrase does not use quotation marks.
- A direct quotation reproduces exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks, with attribution to the author.
- Integration of a source requires three steps: introduce the source, present the quotation or paraphrase, and explain how it supports your claim. Dropping a quotation without explanation leaves the connection unmade.
- The synthesis essay on the AP exam requires evaluating provided sources for credibility and relevance before deciding how to use them in an original argument.
Meerk's quiz — open the Week 16 gate
10 questions, no time limit. 85% on your first attempt in a 24-hour window opens the gate. Retakes inside the window are practice — they help you learn, they don't count. Work alone; the point is to know it, not to have seen it.
Dinner Table Question
Ask at home: How do you decide when a source is trustworthy enough to build an argument on?
En español: ¿Cómo decides cuándo una fuente es lo suficientemente confiable como para basar un argumento en ella?