Choosing Your Sources

Firsthand Evidence:

• Observations
• Interviews
• Surveys and questionnaires
• Experiments
• Personal Experience

Secondhand Evidence:

• Scholarly books and articles
• Serious trade books and articles
• Popular books and magazines
• Newspapers and online news organizations
• Sponsored websites
• Individual web pages, blogs, Usenet groups

1.  Pros and cons of these types of sources?

2.  What kinds of projects might these sources provide evidence for?

Evaluating Your Sources

• Go to the source
• "Don't use a newspaper as the source of a quotation from a presidential address when you can locate a more authoritative version - perhaps even the full text of the speech - at the White House site or a presidential library site" (SFW 231).
• Be aware of bias
• Use evidence that your audience will find compelling
• Build a critical mass of evidence
• "If your evidence for a claim relies solely on circumstantial evidence, on personal experience or on one major example, you should extend your search for additional sources...to back up your claim - or modify the claim" (EAA 513).

Finding Your Sources

• Use the library website
• MLA database
• ENG 1010/1020 page 
• Proquest and JSTOR
• Use the internet

Documenting Your Sources

• MLA Formatting
• In-text parenthetical citations
• Works Cited page citations
• Purdue OWL
• Everything's an Argument, Chapter 20
• The Scott, Foresman Writer, Chapter 27

Assignment for Sunday/Monday:

• Answer the Project Two Planning Questions for your specific Project Two topic.  Then post your answers as a comment on the Inconceivable! page by 5:00pm on Sunday, October 10.
• Then re-visit the Inconceivable! page after 5:00pm on Sunday, October 10 to read your classmates' responses to these questions.  Choose at least one project (not your own) that you're interested in workshopping during Monday's class.