Skip to content

What Sources are Appropriate?

Focus on government sources, academic articles and think tanks.

  • Whenever possible, try to track down the original source of the report.
  • It is OK to cite research, rarely do we cite people.
  • Rarely do we cite news articles, usually only to show that an event/topic was in the news, or if they truly are the original source (usually they are not, but there are some exceptions)

This is not an exhaustive list, but a good start. 

Academic Articles

Appropriate, but often not as useful as hoped

Governments

Appropriate.

National

  • US Census
    • They have a lot more than population data. They also have household data and economic data
    • Tools include
      • PUMS
      • data.census.gov
      • Houeshold and Business Pulse tools
      • Onthemap tool
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics
    • Unemployment, wages, etc
  • Bureau of Economic Analysis
    • Personal Income
  • Department of Health
    • BFRSS
  • Municipal Bonds
    • EMMA

State

Local

  • auditor.utah.gov publishes city and local government
  • Comprehensive annual fiscal reports
  • budgets
  • auditor reports

Public Notice Website - Utah

  • Many public meetings for local governments and subsidiaries.

Think Tanks

Often more useful, but sometimes has more bias

  • Solid options include
    • Pew
    • Kaiser Family Foundation
    • Rand
    • National Bureau of Economic Research
    • National Conference of State Legislatures
    • Tax Foundation
  • Highly Factual, but bias in content selection or political leaning
    • Brookings (Progressive)
    • Urban Institute (Liberal)
    • Cato (Libertarian)
    • American Enterprise Institute (Conservative)
    • Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Progressive)
    • Economic Policy Institute (Liberal)
    • Center for American Progress (Progressive)

News Articles

Only if you are reporting on actual news, or perhaps a poll that was published via news paper. Whenever possible, try to track down the original source for the reporting.  * Best of/Worst of/State rankings/etc. Make sure you have the original source. * Some of these will be based on propitiatory data. These are ok to cite, just make sure you explain what the data is and where it is coming from * Some will be an index, based on a variety of factors. These are ok to cite.  * Some will be based on a single factor from the census, or some other source of public data. Avoid citing these, just track down the original data.