EVALUATING SOURCES FOR PROPOSALS

EVALUATING SOURCES IN 5 STEPS

Searching for reliable information to support

your proposal

Proposals offer structured persuasion for internal or external audiences. When writing

a proposal, you

must be guided by a focus statement of purpose to help to achieve a successful persuasive message. That is why is important to select correctly your information sources. As you accumulate a list of sources you

may find that your problem is not finding enough information, but deciding which inf

ormation to use.

Navarro, an English professor at the University of Texas at el Paso, says “Interesting sources would give credibility to your arguments and purposes in order to support your proposal”

You can save time and effort by briefly evaluating the sources before you read each one in detail.

• STEP 1

Before you even begin your research project, think about how the sources

you

found could help to support your proposal and achieve a successful persuasion.How you plan to use a source will affect how you will evaluate it.

Not every source must directly support what yo

u are proposing. Sources can have various functions in a paper. For example, they can:

• Provide background information or context for your research project (introduction)
• Explain terms or concepts that your readers might not understand
• Provide evidence for your purpose
• Lend authority to your purpose

• STEP 2

Is it enough information or too much?

To judge this, look at the number of pages. A one page article may give you a little bit information and it probably wont give you much substance, so you will need other sources. On the other hand, a ten page article will keep you busy reading for a long time and may be more information than you need.

• STEP 3

What kind of information does it offer?

You suppose to have already clarified the problem. Look for the kind of information that you plan to focus on your paper. Some sources provide statistics and the result of studies about the issue. Other anecdotal articles tell personal experi

ences related to your topic.

• STEP 4

Is it-up-to-date?

Look at the publication date. Your proposal is about a current problem that you are trying to solve or about a current issue, then you do not want to use articles that are more than 6-8 years old. But if you are witting about a historical issue that led to a current problem, you will want sources that go back a number of years.

• STEP 5

How is the information biased?

Every article is written with an audience in mind, other ones are written wit

h the intent to present only one point of view or to persuade the reader. It is fine to use such an article as a source as long as you are aware of the opinion. Look at who the writer is and as you what organization she or he represents. Look for specific words with positive or negative connotations or statements that make unrealistic claims.

WEB SOURCES

Look for the following:

1. Authorship

• Does the Wed site or document have an author? You may need to do some clicking and scrolling to find the author’s name. If you have landed directly on an internal page of a site, for example, you may need to navigate to the home page or find an “about this site” link.

• If there is an author, can you tell whether he or she is knowledgeable and credible? When the author’s qualifications aren’t listed on the site itself, look for links to the author’s home page, which may provide evidence of his or her interests and expertise

1. Sponsorship

• Who, if anyone, sponsors this site? The sponsor of the site is often named and described on the home page.
• What does the URL tell you? The URL ending often specifies the type of group hosting this site: commercial (.com), educational (.edu), nonprofit (.org), governmental (.gov), or network (.net). URLs may also indicate a country of origin: uk (United Kingdom) or jp (Japan), for instance.

1. Currency

• How current is the site? Check for the date of publication or the latest update, often located at the bottom of the home page or at the beginning or end of an internal page.

You probably will not have time to go over all your sources. Then, focus your effort on the most important and attractive information.

After you have evaluated a number of sources, you should write a list of the ones that you that will be useful. At this point, the working reference list will provide a good start to find handy information for your paper. Do not forget to be ethical and cite your sources that you actually will be using on your paper at the end of it.

Reliable information is the key for an outstanding proposal.

In this blog, “How to evaluate the credibility of a source”, you will find extra tips to examine your information in order to write successful proposals.

http://www.wikihow.com/Evaluate-the-Credibility-of-a-Source

REFERENCES

• Dollahite & Haun, 2006, Sourcework Academic Writing From Sources, Portland State University.
• Navarro, 2010, ESOL 1312, University of Texas at El Paso.
• Image 1 http://oil.otago.ac.nz/oil/centraltafe/module7.html
• Image 2 http://escherdax.wordpress.com/2010/03/page/2/