Research Methods

9 Ways to Verify Primary Source Reliability

9 Ways to Verify Primary Source Reliability

To produce sound historical research, we need reliable primary sources. Records created at the same time as an event, or as close as possible to it, usually have a greater chance of being accurate than records created years later, especially by someone without firsthand knowledge of the event. When you are conducting research, you want to corroborate the contents of the document you are working with with information from other sources that have been proven to be legitimate

Finding a Research Question

Finding a Research Question

When writing a paper, your first task is to find a research question that will lead to a research problem worth solving. First, find a topic specific enough to research it in the time that you have allotted to complete the project. You are looking for a right-sized question worth investigating. A thesis question, for example, should be bigger and more complex than a short undergraduate paper.