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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). In most cases, when you find a news site or blog post reporting on research, track down the original research.

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
  • transparency.utah.gov
  • 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)
  • Heritage (Conservative)
  • 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.