52a. Determining how sources might contribute to your writing
How you plan to use sources in your paper will affect how you evaluate them. Not every source must directly support your thesis; sources can have a range of functions in a paper. They can do any of the following:
- provide background information or context for your topic
- explain terms or concepts that your readers might not understand
- provide evidence for your argument
- lend authority to your argument
- identify a gap or contradiction in the conversation
- offer counterarguments and alternative interpretations to your argument
As you plan, you will need to think through the kinds of sources that will help you fulfill your purpose. The following are notes that one student took as she planned a paper.
Purpose: to persuade
My argument: that public funding for the arts should be granted on artistic merit alone and not on so-called decency standards
Sources I could use for background/context:
- 1998 Supreme Court decision (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley)
- First Amendment
Sources that support my argument:
- interviews of controversial artists Karen Finley and Tim Miller
Source that represents an alternative viewpoint:
- passages from a profile of conservative North Carolina senator Jesse Helms
With her overall purpose in mind, the student judged each source according to the specific role it would play in her argument. For more examples of how student writers use sources for a variety of purposes, see 53c and 58c.
Viewing evaluation as a process
When you use sources in your writing, make a habit of evaluating, or judging the value of, those sources at each stage of your project. The following questions may help.
