Assess Your Information

Field research methods don’t always produce the results a writer needs. Before you use information collected through interviews, observation, or surveys, evaluate its accuracy and relevance by using the following checklist:

Checklist for Assessing Field Sources

image Is the information you collected in an observation still relevant? Are your observation notes as complete as you had hoped they would be?

image Are the questions you asked in an interview or through correspondence still relevant to your writing project?

image Are the people you interviewed or corresponded with as qualified and knowledgeable as you expected?

image Were the questions you asked in an interview or through correspondence answered fully and honestly?

image Did survey respondents have adequate time to complete the survey? Did they appear to believe that their privacy would be respected?