1
A government labor dataset is strong for official employment counts but may not answer why workers changed jobs.
8 Source Evaluation Examples
Use these examples to study structure, specificity, tone, and variation. They are demonstrations—not claims about a real person or organization unless the example itself makes that explicit.
Before you copy
What to notice in the examples
Good source evaluation is task-specific: instead of labeling sources simply “good” or “bad,” it explains what a source can reliably support, what it cannot support, and whether stronger or more direct evidence is available.
- Authorship, organization, or provenance.
- Evidence and method behind the claims.
- Relevance to the exact research question.
- Publication date and whether currency matters.
- Bias, incentives, missing context, and limitations.
- Relationship to primary or more authoritative sources.
2
A company press release is authoritative about what the company announced, but not independent evidence that the announced product performs as claimed.
3
A peer-reviewed review article is useful for mapping a research field, while a newer primary study may be better for a specific recent result.
4
A newspaper interview can document what a public figure said, but the interview alone cannot verify every factual claim in the statement.
5
A personal blog may be valuable evidence of one person’s experience but weak evidence for population prevalence.
6
An undated health article can still explain stable anatomy, but it is risky for current treatment recommendations.
7
A digitized historical letter is a primary source for the writer’s words, while the archive description provides separate contextual interpretation.
8
A survey vendor’s report may contain useful data, but its sampling method must be checked before generalizing to all consumers.
Keep the underlying decision or pattern, then replace the subject, evidence, relationship, constraints, and tone with details that belong to your situation. If your final line still works after swapping only one noun, it may be too close to the example.