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Source Evaluator

by @quochungto

Evaluate, triage, and actively read a set of research sources — books, articles, and online materials — by applying a dual-axis relevance-and-reliability scr...

When to Use
TriggerAction
- You have search results or a bibliography and need to triage it to a manageable set
- You are unsure whether a source is credible enough to cite in a scholarly or professional context
- You are reading to find or sharpen a research problem, not just collect supporting evidence
- You need to understand where sources agree and disagree to position your own argument
- You have taken notes but worry they may misrepresent what a source actually claims
**The core pattern:** evaluate every source on two axes — relevance to your question, and reliability of its claims — before committing reading time. Then read high-priority sources in two passes: first generously (to understand), then critically (to respond). Record what the source says and what you think about it in clearly separated layers.
Before starting, confirm you have:
- A stated research question or working hypothesis (even a rough one)
- At least one candidate source to evaluate
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💡 Examples

Example 1: Triaging a bibliography

Research question: "How did social media use during the 2020 US election affect political polarization?"

Given 12 sources, the evaluator would:

  • Classify Wikipedia and a Pew Research explainer as tertiary (useful for orientation, not citation)
  • Mark a 2019 peer-reviewed article on social media and polarization as secondary + Read
  • Flag a 2016 book on political communication as secondary + Reliable but flag for currency (pre-2020)
  • Mark a personal blog post with no author or date as Exclude
  • Example 2: Reading for a research problem

    A student reading a secondary source on urban desegregation finds the source argues that federal mandates uniformly increased white flight. The student applies creative disagreement type 3 (developmental contradiction): data from three Midwestern cities suggest the pattern peaked and then reversed after 5 years. That disagreement is the research problem.

    Example 3: Context-preserving note

    Poor note: "Jones (p. 123): The war was caused by Z." Better note: "Jones argues the war was caused by X, Y, and Z (p. 123); he considers Z the most important cause (p. 123), for reasons on pp. 124-28. Note: X and Y are introduced as background context, not as Jones's main causal argument."


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    TERMINAL
    clawhub install bookforge-source-evaluator

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