Reviewing Alternative Sources of Information
In this assignment, you will identify and evaluate four alternative sources of information relevant to your topic of interest or research focus. The assignment will challenge you to search for and carefully evaluate the credibility of Internet sources relevant to your topic. Familiarize yourself with the different kinds of information available from organizational, institutional, and governmental agency websites before you select the sources of information for this topic. The information you identify and review will contribute to your Week Five and Six Written Assignments, and will serve as a foundation for the literature review you will write in your second Scholarly Argument course, RES 7510.
Written Assignment Instructions:
In a paper of at least 2,000 words (not including title, abstract, and reference pages), identify four institutional, organizational, or governmental agency sources that relate to your topic of interest or research focus (two of the sources may be those you profiled in the second Discussion Forum assignment this week). Address the following:
- Briefly describe each source, identifying the owner/sponsor of the source (the institutional, organizational or governmental agency) and describing the relationship between the mission or purpose of the institution, organization, or agency and the topic of interest to you. For example, if you identified a report or a summary of statistics from the Autism Research Institute, identify the mission or purpose of the Autism Research Institute and justify the use of the source as being appropriate to support research on your topic of interest.
Analyze and summarize the information from each institutional, organizational, or governmental agency source. How do the various sources relate or link to one another? How is the information supportive across the sources, and how is the information contradictory across the sources? For example, did you identify two different sets of data about your topic that offer collaborating (or contradictory) perspectives about your research topic or research focus? Did the information you found include references to scholarly articles or research? Did the sources you identified link you to other relevant and credible sources?
- Evaluate the evidence of quality of each source, using the criteria introduced in the first Discussion Forum assignment. Is there any evidence of lack of consistency or bias in the information you found? Do you have any ethical concerns about using the source? If so, describe your concerns.
Prepare an outline of the information you gathered from the four sources that could be used if you were to write a paper on your topic or research focus. Organize your outline as a logical flow of information that would explain to a reader how you might synthesize the information across the five sources.
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