Judging a source
Reliability criteria, primary, secondary and tertiary sources, fact and opinion, reading a web address and the standing of a developer's sources: deciding what to trust, and why.
- 24 cards
- 4 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
A few cards from the deck
Primary source: what is it?
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A document produced at the time of the facts or by whoever decides or measured them: a standard, an RFC, official documentation, source code, raw data.
This is where disputes are settled: if a tutorial and the RFC disagree, the RFC prevails. A primary source is not necessarily easy to read, nor always up to date.
A generative AI answer, with no source cited, describes how
sorted()behaves in Python. What is its standing?- A lead to check, not a citable source
- A secondary source, since it summarises the documentation
- A primary source, since it comes from the tool itself
- A reliable source, since it is recent and well written
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A lead to check, not a citable source
A text produced with no source can be neither checked nor cited, and may contain errors stated with confidence. It yields leads, which are then confirmed in the official documentation.
A … is a paper put online before peer review: its results are not yet validated.
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A preprint is a paper put online before peer review: its results are not yet validated.
It can be read and cited, provided you say it has not been reviewed and do not present its conclusions as established.
Secondary source: what is it?
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A document that explains, comments on or summarises primary sources: a tutorial, a review article, a post that comments on a standard.
It helps understanding, but drifts from the origin with every retelling. A tertiary source, such as an encyclopedia, summarises secondary sources in turn: when in doubt, go back to the primary one.
Léa is convinced framework X is the fastest. She searches “X fastest” and reads only the articles that say so. What is the problem, and what should she do?
- Confirmation bias; she should also look for independent measurements and criticism
- A silence problem; she should add synonyms to her query
- A date problem; she should keep only recent articles
- No problem: all the articles read say the same, which is cross-checking
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Confirmation bias; she should also look for independent measurements and criticism
Her query already contains the answer and she dismisses what contradicts it. Several articles repeating the same idea are not cross-checking if she looked only for those.