EVALUATION OF SOURCES

AC2.2 Evaluate the usefulness of a range of sources including from a local/Wales perspective and one other country or region. Merit: Clear evaluation of the usefulness of a range of sources of various types including currency, comprehensiveness, validity, reliability, bias, and coverage of subject matter.

Sources must be fully referenced both within the Individual Investigation and in a bibliography. It is not good practice to attempt an evaluation of each source in turn, especially as many sources will be used repeatedly and are generally accepted as reliable e.g. government statistics or the BBC. It is a good idea to comment where appropriate i.e. where sources are obviously limited or biased. Detailed comments made in the main body of the work on the usefulness and reliability of a few selected sources can demonstrate an ability to meet the requirements of the assessment criteria.

It is essential to provide detailed comment on any primary evidence generated e.g. through questionnaires or interviews. The rationale also provides an opportunity to comment on the usefulness and reliability of sources. Alternatively an annotated bibliography or perhaps a source review written following the bibliography could provide useful supporting evidence.

Source Review Introduction A main focus of my research has been to look at organisations for and against regulation of the tobacco industry. Opinion on smoking legislation tends to be very polarised, emotive and biased. I found many sources of useful information but this was often produced with a particular agenda in mind and subject to bias so I had to carefully consider the type, purpose and content of all sources.

The website of the pressure group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) includes factsheets which provided some reliable, factual information relating to the smoking and the law. The factsheet on ‘‘Tobacco Economics’ provided useful information but was produced as part of the anti-smoking agenda and so contained some statistics which were not referenced and often seemed little more than vague estimations e.g. ‘Tobacco smuggling results in a net loss to the Treasury of around £1.6bn a year.’

I have balanced anti-smoking sources with research on opposing groups against anti- smoking legislation. These include sources from the tobacco industry and interest groups such as FOREST (Voice and Friend of the Smoker). FOREST claims that increases in tobacco duty fuel the illicit trade and adversely hit the poor and elderly are often not sufficiently referenced or substantiated. I have also looked at websites and other sources produced by the tobacco industry. Organisations like British American Tobacco focus on research and development to reduce the harmful effects of smoking. These multi- million pound organisations have greater resources to promote their views and products in more sophisticated ways than smaller anti-smoking pressure groups.

I have balanced the polarised opinion and messages of the interest groups with official statistics and information. Several official reports were useful such as those from the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, providing reliable evidence on the potential health hazards of second-hand smoke for children. The ‘Tobacco and Health in Wales’ report 2012, published by the Public Health Wales Observatory and Welsh Government, provided an official, reliable and comprehensive summary of statistics on tobacco use and its impact on health and health services in Wales.