6.6: Using BEAM

BEAM: Background Sources

Background sources should be noncontroversial—the author accepts information from these sources as being authoritative (and expects readers to, as well). In other words, the sources (and the information gleaned from them) are generally trusted or undisputed. That information can serve as the incontestable foundation for your claims.

Background information is common knowledge (e.g. the sky is blue) and not necessary to cite. It’s recommended that you cite a background source if you’re unsure if it’s common knowledge. It can be difficult to make this determination, so it’s always a good idea to consult your professor.

Let’s look at a statement in the first paragraph of the pop culture essay:

How do you know that the “corporate giants are mostly multinational conglomerates” as stated in the first sentence? Or that the items listed are indeed the stuff of popular culture? These are examples of common knowledge.

Looking a little deeper…

Without context, this paragraph could also be the conclusion of a paper about what corporations should do (demonstrating the ongoing nature of knowledge itself). But the paper is not about making recommendations to the American Cultural Industry. This is an assertion that the author uses to help set up his different arguments and is meant to be taken at face value. So it’s an example of how the same source can play different roles in different written assignments—all depending on how writers use them.

There is more about background sources at Background Reading.

BEAM: Exhibit and Evidence Sources

Generally, exhibit and evidence sources are works of literature (or other media), collected data, or some observed phenomenon, etc. that you have been asked to write about. They are what you analyze or interpret.

Looking again at the pop culture essay, the exhibits being examined are pop culture and American (as well as global) values. Specifically, the essay is examining the relationship between the two:

Exhibit sources are not limited to examples in the humanities; they could also be data that was collected in a scientific experiment or by a website’s user survey. They can also simply serve as examples that help support a claim.

BEAM: Argument Sources

Argument sources provide you with the other voices in the academic conversation about your topic. Who else has done similar research, and how should your paper respond to what they’ve said? Does your paper refine or extend an existing hypothesis someone else has tested? If so, those sources belong in your paper.

Sometimes the purpose of including an argument source is to disagree with it and definitively indicate a different direction.

From our pop culture essay example:

The author is taking part and taking a stand in the ongoing scholarly discussion of culture, although this endorsement of Althusser’s work could possibly be considered a method source if the argument in the article went in a different direction.

BEAM: Method Sources

While argument sources help you frame your paper within the larger scholarly discussion about your topic and exhibits provide a focal point, method sources help provide underlying and sometimes implicit assumptions for your argument or analysis.

For some research, these are literally the methods you use to collect data like a focus group or a particular statistical analysis, and they provide justification for them. In other research, your paper might reveal a leaning toward a major attitude or school of thought within a discipline.

As a persuasive piece of writing, the essay has this intrinsic thread of caution and warning that is summed up in its conclusion:

While this is a subtle example, you would generally cite or at least credit your methods and theories that frame your analysis in your bibliography.