10 Using Sources

Useful Sources

Many of us learn in high school and college courses to think of certain sources as “good” or “bad.” Instructors may forbid the use of Wikipedia, for example, or create assignments that only allow the use of peer-reviewed articles. As we move into a professional sphere, though, the selection of sources becomes more complex. Whether a source is useful or not often depends on a combination of factors, including not just whether the source is “trustworthy” or not, but also whether it meets the information need we have right now. For example, a great, trustworthy academic source on the literary references in Guillaume de Machaut’s motets may not be very helpful in making a performance decision about how many singers to assign to each part. 

The BEAM Model

Part of thinking about the usefulness of a particular source is considering the kind of questions you want to answer, and how different kinds of sources might function to help you think through the questions and find answers. The video below introduces the idea of the BEAM model, which helps organize some of the ways sources can function in answering a research question.

After watching the video, consider some of the research questions and sources you’ve worked with in past music courses, and how you chose to use them.

Background and evidence are perhaps a bit more straightforward, and likely to match how you used sources in your undergrad papers: either to provide facts and background information, or as a source to be analyzed or used as evidence. Using a source for its argument means to engage in conversation with the point the source is making, either to build on it, to refute it, or to complicate it. You’ll usually want to use scholarly papers for argument sources since they are usually structured around an argument and expect others to engage this way. However, you may find someone making an argument in the popular press or in your non-academic research community that you feel would benefit from elaboration or refutation.

The use of a source for its methodology is a bit more abstract and refers to drawing research methods, approaches, terminology or concepts from the source, even if it’s on a very different topic. For example, imagine you read a study of bluegrass music that approached it by doing a very focused study of one particular community rather than trying to gather a large data set. Even if you study something totally different, like opera, you might decide that you’re interested in trying out that approach by doing a focused fieldwork study of one opera company. You might want to cite that bluegrass study and use their methods as a model, even though your topic is different.

Here’s another video about the BEAM method, this time by a music librarian, using music examples. She refers to an assignment at her institution, which is of course a bit different from ours, but it should give you a quick review of the BEAM model as it applies to music. She doesn’t talk about the “M” much, but we’ll continue to discuss that area going forward. It will be less relevant for most papers in this class, so it’s ok to take some time.

Locating Information

Every source and research project is different, but there are some patterns to where you’re likely to find information for each of the uses discussed in the B.E.A.M. model. Reference sources like encyclopedias are a good source of background information; background information can also be found in many books, especially if they are on more general topics, chapters in “companion” and “handbook”-style collections, and in introductory sections of scholarly articles. “Exhibit” materials can come from your own data or observation methods, but also from primary sources like video recordings, original documents, and historical publications; these items can often be found in archives and specialized databases. Sometimes, collections of these materials might be edited together and published, but they are still primary sources. The arguments you engage with will likely come from the body of scholarly sources like books and journal articles, because those sources usually make multiple levels of argument about their topic. Methods and methodology will also be found in these scholarly sources as well — in social sciences fields, they may be explained in a separate “Methods” section. In humanities-style studies, look for introductory sections or explanations of how the author assembled and analyzed their materials, and mentions of any critical theorists or other thinkers whose approaches they used.