Introduction

For beginner research assignments, you will mostly be searching for information other people have created or collected, rather than generating your own data. There are many factors to consider when deciding whether a source is trustworthy and relevant. One of these factors is expertise – the knowledge or skill the author(s) specialize in and how they developed that skill. In other words, does this author know what they’re talking about? How do you know?

Deciding whether an author has relevant expertise helps you answer the question: Is this the best source I could use for this information, or should I look elsewhere?

This chapter briefly covers three dimensions of expertise you could consider when gathering sources. We cover these categories to help you understand what “counts” as expertise more broadly than just “they have a Ph.D.” – although that is certainly a good starting point.

For this discussion, let’s pretend you are researching college students with physical disabilities. Which people or organizations have expertise on this topic?

Academic Expertise

As we’ve mentioned before, college-level research assignments (and beyond) usually require scholarly sources. Scholarly sources are written by and for people with academic expertise

Many topics are interdisciplinary, which means you may find scholars in a variety of fields publishing on that topic from different viewpoints. For example, specialists in education, architecture, health, or technology (and more) may publish relevant research on the topic of college students with disabilities.

Professional Expertise

Your research may also benefit from people or organizations who do work on your topic. Longtime professionals and respected organizations often have in-depth knowledge of the day-to-day realities of doing work in a given field, may have produced/collected data, reports, and other publications, and may have helpful connections or additional resource recommendations.

For our research on college students with disabilities, entities with professional expertise could include:

• professionals who work in a university disability office (along with any web pages, publications, videos, etc. they produce)
  • this category may include admin, but also specially trained aides like interpreters
• organizations such as:
  • National Center for Collect Students With Disabilities
  • Association on Higher Education and Disabilities
  • Other organizations which focus on a specific condition or group of people

Keep in mind there may be overlap between professional and academic expertise. Academics with degrees and research experience in a given subject, for example, may also be involved in a reputable organization and contribute to their data collection, publications, outreach efforts, and more.

Lived Experience

Finally, people with lived experience related to a topic can provide invaluable perspectives. Their input can be particularly crucial for topics that aren’t well represented in academic research, either because they are new areas of interest, they are related to very recent events, or they relate to underrepresented groups.

You can get information on a topic from a person with firsthand experience in a variety of ways. If the person is living and willing, you could directly interview them, or analyze any other words, images, etc. they produce. Examples could be a book they’ve written, interviews they’ve given to someone else, photographs or videos they’ve either taken or been featured in, etc. If the person or event you’re researching is historical, old photographs, newspapers, and even objects can serve as useful primary sources.

Bringing It Together

Different research topics will benefit from different types of sources. While most college research assignments should use scholarly sources, many may also incorporate other sources of data and information, including from firsthand perspectives.