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5. Does the research echo with any other sources of information?
If research is truly innovative and original it may not echo with existing research, and that doesn't matter, it can be really exciting. But, if it does contain any big surprises you may want to cast your critical eye over it quite carefully before being too won over.
It can be helpful to get into the habit of always looking at more than one source of information for key data and noting similarities or differences. This doesn't necessarily mean that one set of data is wrong; the research may have been looking at slightly different things, or collected in a different way. However, noting and looking for explanations and clarifications where there are contradictions and similarities between data sets will help you gain more confidence in drawing your own conclusions about the LMI you are interested in.
As a minimum think about:
- Does the research have similar findings to other sources of data?
- If there are significant contradictions to 'accepted' wisdom are these explained?
- Is the research original, or is it based on recycling or reanalysing existing sources of data?
Last cached: 2008-09-02 01:08 PM