TV3B - Taking a critical look at your sources

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• Leerjaar 3

Source criticism 

What is source criticism?

Taking a closer look at your sources

Looking at the origins, the reliability, and the validity

Why critique your sources?

Basis for your research needs to be solid!

You need to know what a source tells you

A paper based on nonsense sources = nonsense

Sources need to be RELIABLE & USEFUL

Two forms of criticism

Analysis

Evaluation

Analysing sources

Who created the source? In what context? For which audience?

What type of source is it? Primary/secundairy? (Un)written?

What does my source tell me about my subject? 
Does it match up with what other sources are saying?

Evaluation

Is my source reliable? And is my source useful?

How do we evaluate the reliability of a source?

Reliability

Usefulness

It provides explicit information about the topic 

It provides implicit information about the topic

It corroborates information from another source

It contradicts information from another source -> comparing points of view

Practising source criticism

Take two of your sources

Compare them using the reference sheet on Classroom

Analyse and evaluate them

Write a paragraph on why you think these are good sources or not