Positives and negatives | Study Skills for Sixth Form

Considering the pros and cons of your sources

Avatar of Steve the student Study the table below to find out the pros and cons of the resources available to you.

Once you have an understanding of these, test your knowledge by completing the diamond rank and mind map exercises or challenge others with the High Score Wins card game.

Resource	Positive	Negative
Academic books	Reliable Published Accessible Often written by experts Less likely to be biased Informative Provides references to inform your research	Time consuming Can be outdated More difficult to access than some other resources Self-published books may be less reliable
Documentaries	Easy to access Informative Great background information Provide lots of different resources Factual	Hard to reference Do not provide detailed information Can be biased Need to check reliability
Images and cartoons	Quick Easy to access Informative Representative of time and place Tell a story Can be stereotypical of it’s time	Can be biased Limited in information it can covey Need to check provenance (where it came from) Need to know context Can be manipulated
Journals	Informative Reliable Published Peer reviewed Short and more accessible than books Provides references to help inform your own research Written by experts Answer an academic question	Very specific Too scholarly Harder to access
Newspapers	Current Easy to access Written by experts Informative	Biased Limited information Sensationalist Not reliable as too current
Websites	Easy to access Easy to search/navigate Informative Easy to reference Dedicated reliable, academic websites Current	Need to question reliability Anyone can create website Fake/hoax websites No review process on most websites Check domain of website for who has created and why Can change every day
Wikipedia	Quick Easy to use Current Good starting point Utilise references to inform own research Easy to access	Anyone can contribute and edit articles It has no formal editors or peer review process Constantly changing Potentially very biased Articles are not translated between languages
YouTube	Easy to navigate Easily digestible information Informative Current Multi-media Can be created by experts, universities, etc. Some references given	Very broad ranging Need to check origin/reliability Limited information