Evaluating & Incorporating Statistics
Numeric search data can be found all over the place. A lot of it can be found as part of another source- such as books; journal, newspaper, and magazine articles; and web pages. In these cases, the data do not stand alone as a distinct element, but instead are part of the larger work.
When searching for data in books and articles and on web pages, terms such as statistics or data may or may not be useful search terms. That’s because many writers don’t use those terms in their scholarly writing. They tend to use the words findings or results when talking about the data that could be useful to you. In addition, statistics is a separate discipline and using that term will turn up lots of journals in that area, which won’t be helpful to you. So use the search terms data and statistics with caution, especially when searching library catalogs.
Even without using those search terms, many scholarly sources you turn up are likely to contain data. Once you find potential sources, skim them for tables, graphs, or charts. These items are displays or illustrations of data gathered by researchers. However, sometimes data and interpretations are solely in the body of the narrative text and may be included in sections called “Results” or “Findings.”
If the data you find in a book, article, or web page is particularly helpful and you want more, you could contact the author to request additional numeric research data. Researchers will often discuss their data and its analysis – and sometimes provide some of it (or occasionally, all). Some may link to a larger numeric research data set. However, if a researcher shares his or her data with you, it may be in a raw form. This means that you might have to do additional analysis to make it useful in answering your question.
Gathering Data from Multiple Sources
Depending on your research question, you may need to gather data from multiple sources to get everything you need to answer your research question and make your argument for it.
For instance, in our example related to foodbanks above, we suggested where you could find statistics about the number of people who get food from American foodbanks. But with that research question (“Why is there a gap in the number of people who qualify for food from foodbanks and the number of people who use foodbanks?”), you would also need to find out from another source how many people qualify for foodbanks based on their income and compare that number with how many people actually use foodbanks.
Evaluating Sources in Action
The following video provides an overview of the evaluation and incorporation of information found on the web:
“Evaluating Internet Sources .” By Downs-Jones Library. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxd9iwQ_pt4 Licensed under: CC-BY
