Writing Spaces 3

Selecting Sources Sample Topic: Animal Treatment
Let’s explore the topic of animal treatment. After watching an ASPCA 
commercial, you decided to explore the topic of animal shelters. Your in-
terest in the topic was piqued by a brief memory of a handmade poster 
you saw earlier at a gas station. “Emily Missing,” you remember it say-
ing. Judging by the picture, Emily happened to be a kitten that ran away. 
“What if someone found Emily but had not seen the poster?” you won-

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Assessing Source Credibility for Crafting a Well-Informed Argument
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dered. Someone could have tried to return her to her owners if she wore 
a tag, or Emily could have been turned in to the nearest animal shelter or 
humane society. With Emily’s fortune at the back of your mind, you want 
to learn more about animals in animal shelters and possibly write your 
findings in a paper.
You have a zillion questions to ask. How many animal shelters are cur-
rently in operation in the United States, or even in a given state? How 
many animals are kept there? What are the most common animals in a 
shelter? Do most animals in shelters get adopted? How do shelters ensure 
that an animal goes to good hands and not to abusive owners or research 
labs? What happens to those who cannot find a new owner because of their 
age, illness, or behavioral problems? How do shelters raise money? What 
happens to animals when a shelter cannot house them any longer?
Following in the steps of dozens of your fellow classmates, you opened 
a Google search and typed in “animal shelter” (see figure 1). Among the 
top results, you saw links to your local animal shelters and other res-
cue organizations.
Figure 1. Google search for “animal shelter” shows several ad results, including 
“Humane Society of North Texas,” “Dallas Pets Alive Pet Rescue,” DFW Hu-
mane Society,” and “Houston SPCA.”

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Kate Warrington, Natasha Kovalyova, and Cindy King
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When searching for “animal shelter,” you receive more than one bil-
lion results. You are now faced with a formidable evaluation task, but you 
can’t possibly look at all of these sources. You could choose to narrow your 
search terms to something like “animal shelters and lost pets” (which yields 
66,200,000 results) or take Google’s apparent suggestion and focus your 
search on animal shelters in your local area. Let’s say you decide to focus 
on the Humane Society of North Texas, the first result from your original 
search (see figure 2). 
Figure 2. The Humane Society of North Texas homepage shows the organiza-
tion’s logo, a basic navigational menu, and a photo of a large dog looking out a car 
window into the camera. Text next to the dog encourages viewers to donate their 
vehicle in support of the Humane Society.
To guide you during this evaluation process are the critical reading 
questions that we discussed earlier. 
1. Who is the author? 
2. How do I know that he/she is knowledgeable about the subject?
3. Is the author using emotional appeals/manipulation in his or 
her argument?
4. Does the author use “loaded” language to distract readers from 
relevant reasons and evidence?
5. Is the support for the argument appropriate to the claim?
6. Are all the statements believable?
7. Is the argument consistent and complete?