Quality of evidence

[Teresa C]

Back in October, I posted in the Wishlist about quality of source citations/evidence. A few people joined the conversation with their ideas, and I want to bring the conversation in to this forum to get a wider audience.
A couple of people pointed out that you can add the QUAY field to the source (quality of data), but for me that's only half the solution.
Does anyone have a way they comment on the quality of the evidence? So the source itself might be of good quality, but how strong is it evidence for the particular event it is cited for?

Ideas are very welcome :-)

[AE Palmer]

Re: Quality of evidence

Back in October, I posted in the Wishlist about quality of source citations/evidence. A few people joined the conversation with their ideas, and I want to bring the conversation in to this forum to get a wider audience.
A couple of people pointed out that you can add the QUAY field to the source (quality of data), but for me that's only half the solution.
Does anyone have a way they comment on the quality of the evidence? So the source itself might be of good quality, but how strong is it evidence for the particular event it is cited for?

Ideas are very welcome :-)

This is a multi-faceted problem. First off, you need to identify whether the source is an original (contemporary) document to the event or not. Secondly, you must decide whether the evidence it presents is accurate, or not. Thirdly, this decision is largely based on corroborating source material – that is to say that any given source is not of much value by itself! It is only when we have MULTIPLE independent sources that we can begin to believe what the data says!

That being said, whenever we have a large source (with many references) that has a high degree of correlation to other sources, can we trust it on its merits. In my own case, I have several sources that fall into this category. They correlate well with multiple “other” sources and thus, I place a high degree of trust in them even if they are the only source available for any given factoid. In other words, they have earned my trust!

As such, I have taken to commenting on my source material and noting when any given source has a high correlation with other sources. Especially so when the information comes from truly independent sources. It is also important to recognize the utility of having multiple sources attached to any given factoid! Having only one source does not mean very much, but if I can attach a dozen different sources to a given fact, I am assured that the information is accurate. In short, the more sources, the merrier!