Sources and Information Needs
Using sources to function in these roles is how you enter into the scholarly conversation with all the other research and writing that has covered your topic before. Below is an example of how authors put their sources to work in their various roles which can help you envision how you can do the same in your own papers.
Example: Climate Justice
Gutschow, B., Gray, B., Ragavan, M. I., Sheffield, P. E., Philipsborn, R. P., & Jee, S. H. (2021). The intersection of pediatrics, climate change, and structural racism: Ensuring health equity through climate justice. Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, 51(6), 101028. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cppeds.2021.101028
BEAM: Background Sources
Let’s look at a statement in the third paragraph of this scholarly article:
“One fundamental example of structural racism, redlining, has led to environmental injustices and potentiates health disparities. During the Great Depression, the federal government passed the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Act.4”
While you may have heard of redlining, you may not have known that a Federal law helped to implement redlining throughout the United States. In the quoted statement and the rest of the paragraph, the authors provide citations to background information on the existence, implementation, and impact of redlining.
Background Reading has more information on background sources.
BEAM: Exhibit and Evidence Sources
Generally, exhibit and evidence sources are works of literature (or other media), collected data, or some observed phenomenon, etc. that you have been asked to write about. They are what you analyze or interpret.
In this article, the authors use three case examples to demonstrate the impact of climate change and racism on children’s health. In Case 1, “A 7 year old boy presents with poorly controlled persistent asthma.” Case 2 describes a behavioral concern while Case 3 focuses on an infant born at 25 weeks gestation.
Exhibit sources are not limited by discipline; they could also be data that was collected in a scientific experiment or by a website’s user survey. They can also simply serve as examples that help support a claim.
BEAM: Argument Sources
Argument sources provide you with the other voices in the academic conversation about your topic. Who else has done similar research, and how should your paper respond to what they’ve said? Does your paper refine or extend an existing hypothesis someone else has tested? If so, those sources belong in your paper.
After describing Case 1 in their article, the authors cite several research articles on the topic of air quality and lung function. For example, “On the other hand, long-term improvements in air quality produce positive effects on lung function and its growth in children.19” This endnote refers to the following article which reports on the connection between air quality and lung function:
- Gauderman WJ, Urman R, Avol E, et al. Association of improved air quality with lung development in children. N Engl J Med 2015;372(10):905–13. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1414123.
The authors chose this article to support their focus on the impact of the environment on children’s health.
BEAM: Method Sources
While argument sources help you frame your paper within the larger scholarly discussion about your topic and exhibits provide a focal point, method sources help provide underlying and sometimes implicit assumptions for your argument or analysis.
For some research, these are literally the methods you use to collect data like a focus group or a particular statistical analysis, and they provide justification for them. In other research, your paper might reveal a leaning toward a major attitude or school of thought within a discipline.
One example is a systematic review. From the article, (p. 3), “A systematic review revealed significant association between heat exposure, air pollution and preterm birth and low birth weight, with black mothers at highest risk.24” Systematic reviews synthesize evidence on a topic in order to answer a research question.