Categorizing Sources Chapter 3

Study Notes

Sources can be categorized in various ways, including by their content, purpose, and format.

Quantitative information involves measurable quantities, such as numbers, and is often called data.
Examples of quantitative information include length, mass, temperature, and time.
Qualitative information involves descriptive judgments using concept words instead of numbers.
Examples of qualitative information include gender, country name, animal species, and emotional state.

Increasingly, other formats such as images, sound, and video are being used to convey information.
Examples of these formats include:
- A video of someone watching scenes from horror movies, with information about their heart rate and blood pressure embedded in the video.
- A database of information about birds, which includes a sound file for each bird singing.
- A list of colors, which includes an image of the actual color.
- A friend orally telling you about a new pizza place, including its location, price, and quality.

Authors typically want to inform, educate, persuade, sell, or entertain.
Fact: useful to inform or make an argument.
Examples of facts include:
- The United States was established in 1776.
- The pH levels in acids are lower than pH levels in alkalines.
- Beethoven had a reputation as a virtuoso pianist.
Opinion: useful to persuade, but careful readers and listeners will notice and demand evidence to back them up.
Examples of opinions include:
- That was a good movie.
- Strawberries taste better than blueberries.
- George Clooney is the sexiest actor alive.
- The death penalty is wrong.

Fact: a statement that can be verified or proven.
Opinion: a statement that expresses a personal belief or attitude.
Objective: a statement that is unbiased and based on facts.
Subjective: a statement that is based on personal feelings or opinions.
Examples of each include:
- Fact: Cheek and Buss administered a questionnaire measuring shyness vs. low sociability to 947 college students, and found a very low correlation between shyness and low sociability.
- Opinion: The reason why I have called for President Obama to issue an executive order banning these military-style firearms and magazines is because there is quite obviously no chance that a cowardly and intransigent Congress, in bed with the NRA, would risk passing gun-control legislation in an election year, or perhaps in any year given this political climate.
- Objective: By any measure, Anne Hathaway is one of the most important actresses of our time.
- Subjective: That was a good movie.

Primary sources: firsthand information, such as original research, data, or eyewitness accounts.
Secondary sources: secondhand information, such as a restatement, analysis, or interpretation of original information.
Tertiary sources: third-hand information, such as a summary or repackaging of original information, often based on secondary information that has been published.