From Inquiry to Academic Writing A Practical Guide, 3rd edition

142 CHAPTER 6 | FRom FIndIng To EvAluATIng SouRCES

•   ^ the nature of the conversation (How have others addressed the problem?)

•   ^ what the author identifies as a misinterpretation or a gap in knowl­

edge, an argument that needs modifying, or a hypothesis.

•   ^ what the author’s own view is

•   ^ how the author supports his or her argument (that is, with primary or sec­

ondary sources, with popular or scholarly articles, with facts or opinions)

•   ^ the accuracy of the author’s evidence (Can you find similar informa­

tion elsewhere?)

If your topic is current and relevant, chances are your searches are

going to turn up a large number of possible sources. How do you go about

choosing which sources to rely on in your writing? Of course, if time were

not an issue, you would read them all from start to finish. But in the real

world, assignments come with due dates. To decide whether a library

source merits a close reading and evaluation, begin by skimming each

book or article. Skimming — briefly examining the material to get a sense

of the information it offers — involves four steps:

1. Read the introductory sections.


2. Examine the table of contents and index.


3. Check the notes and bibliographic references.


4. Skim for the argument.

■ read the Introductory Sections

Turn to the introductory sections of the text first. Many authors use a pref­

ace or an introduction to explain the themes they focus on in a book. An

abstract serves a similar purpose, but article abstracts are usually only

250 words long. In the introductory sections, writers typically describe the

issue that motivated them to write and indicate whether they believe the

work corrects a misconception, fills a gap, or builds on and extends the re ­

search of others. For example, in the preface to her book Learning and Not

Learning English: Latino Students in American Schools (2001), Guadalupe

Valdés explains that even after two years of language instruction, many

students remain at a low level of language competence. In this passage,

Valdés makes clear the purpose of her work:

This book examines the learning of English in American schools by immi­

grant children. It focuses on the realities that such youngsters face in trying to

acquire English in settings in which they interact exclusively with other non­

English­ speaking youngsters the entire school day. It is designed to fill a gap

in the existing literature on non­ English­ background youngsters by offering a

glimpse of the challenges and difficulties faced by four middle­ school students

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