Sustainability Research

Evidence

Sustainability research will involve finding evidence to support your analysis of the problem and potential solutions. But the quality of evidence used in your sources may vary.

When reading, viewing or listening to a source, pay close attention to what type of evidence the source relies on to back up its claims.

A claim is a position or stance that the person communicating takes on an issue.

Evidence are the verifiable facts that support the claim.

This infographic describes eight levels of scientific evidence ranging from anecdotes, which are the weakest form of evidence, through randomized trials and systematic reviews, which provide the strongest scientific evidence when conducted properly. 

Evaluating Evidence: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #6 (Video)

Dig deeper into how to evaluate evidence with this 13-minute video from Crash Crash.