Making Sense of Information: Using Sources in Planning School

With
the semester starting, students are beginning to focus on assignments and other
project work. Today there is a great deal of information available for planners,
but that can lead students to be overwhelmed (and use only a few available
sources) or uncertain about how to use those sources that are available.
Fortunately universities are coming up with resources to help students untangle
these issues. My own institution just launched the very helpful http://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/. The
following tips are adapted from my guide for students doing final projects and
theses (link at the end of this entry).

As
I say in that document, it is very important for students to use sources of
information well in a ways that is true to the content of the sources and also
demonstrate respect for the need of the reader to make her own independent
judgments about the strength of the evidence provided by sources.

• A
  work that only contains sources available on the internet is likely to
  give the reader the impression that a writer was not very energetic in his
  or her investigations. Planning work often involves looking at
  physical sites, talking with people, examining historical evidence, using
  databases, and even understanding technical issues that are documented in
  reports that don't make their way onto the public internet. Students
  typically have free access to a large number of such technical documents
  such as journal articles, historical sources such as historical maps, and
  expensive databases such as business listings-they should use them.
• Writers
  need sources for everything that is not common knowledge to readers or
  that is obviously the writer's own opinion. It is not enough to say you
  found something in multiple places. You need to specifically cite those
  places.
• Sources
  are needed for both the conceptual framework of the piece (e.g. levels
  of public space in squatter settlements, types of planning responses to
  disasters) and for the facts and figures you use to support your
  argument. Sources are also typically needed for the methods you use to
  show that you are building on earlier work, even if modifying it in some
  way.
• Use
  sources critically in a way that respects the reader's needs to be
  able to judge evidence for herself or himself. Weave material about the
  source into the text: "According to the XYZ housing advocacy
  organization...", "based on 150 interviews with clients of CDCs ",
  "reflecting 10 years of experience working with Russian immigrants".
  Saying "Harvard professor X claims that ." is not a strong source of
  evidence. Harvard professors have personal opinions. Readers typically
  deserve to be told about the evidence.
• Not all sources are equal.
  Better sources are published by reputable presses (e.g. University
  Presses), are refereed (blind reviewed articles), or are by reputable
  organizations. They cite sources and are clear about methods so readers
  can check their facts (see Booth et al. 2008, The Craft of Research,
  77-79, for a terrific explanation of this point). Better sources use
  better methods overall. Of course a writer's own analysis can be a source
  and they should say that is the case and show, even if briefly, how they
  did the analysis and why their methods are strong.
• Wikipedia, ask.com and other similar web sites
  are typically not appropriate final sources. It is possible to start at
  Wikipedia but scroll straight to the bottom and look at its sources--they are often very useful. For
  many questions it is better still to use a professional or scholarly
  dictionary such as dictionaries of geography or of planning terms. The
  2001 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (N. Smelser and P. Bates eds.) has substantial
  sections on planning and urban studies and many university libraries
  provide free access.
• One source is frequently
  not enough, particularly for controversial or complicated issues.
  Better writers use multiple sources to allow the reader to see the balance
  of evidence.

For
more on this and related topics go to http://www.annforsyth.net/forstudents.html
and scroll to the "Essential Information" document at the bottom. The other
very important section is the one on making an argument-just because X and Y
both exist in the world does not mean X causes Y as much as a writer might
like it to ..

Thanks to Ruth Kroeger for comments on this entry.