Who's Your Source?

This streamlined and highly accessible book covers all the essentials of research, both within libraries and elsewhere, including print and non-print materials, checklists, and guidelines. Using a clear and easy-to-follow conversational style, the authors manage to avoid the dry quality so often found in how-to guides. In straightforward yet precise detail and depth, Melissa Bender and Karma Waltonen nicely connect the mechanics of composition with the considerations integral to the research process, using frequent questions and answers to effectively illustrate research and writing techniques. Overall, Bender and Waltonen's work provides a variety of educational approaches and considerations to improve students' research and writing skills. This is an excellent resource for educators! -- Roberto C. Delgadillo, University of California, Davis Who's Your Source? is a timely textbook. With chapters on academic sources as well as student-preferred sources (internet, Wikipedia), it addresses the search process and the use (and misuse) of logic and reasoning in assessing sources. It draws on engaging examples from science, politics, and contemporary media (from John Oliver to Monty Python) to help students work through the differences between news and fake news, the uses of evidence, the reliance on forms of visual rhetoric, and the value of testimony from people. It is forthright in its challenge to misleading information and shoddy research. Its discussion of academic genres and procedures is especially thorough. Each chapter offers rich cases for students to work through, sample student papers, discussion questions, and suggestions for projects. -- Jean Ferguson Carr, University of Pittsburgh