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Level 4 Diploma in Business Management

Sources of information and evidence: journals, textbooks, conferences, government data, and how to judge them

BM401 · Academic Writing and Research Skills — Week 5 of 16

CourseBM401
Week5 of 16
SemesterI
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This week’s topics

Sources of information and evidence: journals, textbooks, conferences, government data, and how to judge them

  1. Starting point: reading a journal article and checking a source's credibility
  2. Journals
  3. Textbooks
  4. Conferences
  5. Government data

What you will be able to do

  • 2.1 Compare different sources of information and evidence.

Activity

Start with this week’s 4 videos, then discuss how they apply to this week’s topic and note one example from a real business.

Study materials

Videos

  • The credibility of sources · Oak National Academy, Key Stage 3 (lower secondary level) · for registered students
  • How To Read a Scholarly Journal Article · YouTube · Kishwaukee College Library · 5 min · for registered students
  • Evaluating Resources with CRAAP · YouTube · Shake Library · 6 min · for registered students
  • Primary vs. Secondary Sources: The Differences Explained | Scribbr 🎓 · YouTube · Scribbr · 4 min · for registered students

Further resources

  • Writing Guide, 14.1: Peer-reviewed and other credible sources · PDF · OpenStax Writing Guide with Handbook (2021), 14.1 on journals, books and credible non-academic sources, pp. 456–461 · for registered students
  • Writing Guide, 13.1: Government documents and archives · PDF · OpenStax Writing Guide with Handbook (2021), 13.1 on government documents, archives and evaluating sources, pp. 429–431 · for registered students
  • Evaluating Information: Applying the CRAAP Test · PDF · Meriam Library, CSU Chico, the original one-page CRAAP checklist (currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose) · for registered students
  • Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper · Open-access article · Carey et al. (2020), PLOS Computational Biology. Practical guide to the parts of a research article and how to read them in the right order. · for registered students
  • Everything online is a website: information format confusion in student citation behaviors · Open-access article · Greer (2018), Communications in Information Literacy. Students' confusion between journals, books, reports and websites. · for registered students
Materials marked “for registered students” open in the student portal, which is set up as soon as you receive final acceptance.
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Course plan
  • Week 1: What academic research and writing is: seeking the truth an…
  • Week 2: Academic writing conventions: academic language, paragraphs…
  • Week 3: Paraphrasing, summarising and writing to a word count
  • Week 4: Types of research (descriptive, associational, intervention…
  • Week 5: Sources of information and evidence: journals, textbooks, c…
  • Week 6: The research process: primary and secondary research
  • Week 7: What critical thinking is: a systematic way to evaluate arg…
  • Week 8: Midterm evaluation
  • Week 9: Critical thinking skills: critical reading, analysis, inter…
  • Week 10: Why critical thinking matters in research: creativity, lang…
  • Week 11: Evaluating an argument: coherence, testing the evidence and…
  • Week 12: What makes a reliable academic argument: evidence, premise …
  • Week 13: Inductive and deductive reasoning
  • Week 14: Building a logical argument structure for a given topic
  • Week 15: Review and coursework completion
  • Week 16: Final evaluation and project assessment
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