A magazine editor wants to do an article about current trends in teen buying habits. He assigns a journalism intern to research
this idea. Which source would most likely yield the best information for this article?
A direct interview with five teenaged girls who love to shop for clothing and shoes
A graph showing the dollar value of purchases by people 18 to 25 over a ten-year period
A research report by a credit card company detailing purchases of teens between 2010 and 2014
A voluntary survey among high school boys on how much money they spend each week
The source which would most likely yield the best information for the article is the following one:
A direct interview with five teenaged girls who love to shop for clothing and shoes.
Explanation:
It is a direct source, and as so it can offer the most reliable information. Plus, teens tend to like the same things, since they are usually trend-oriented. If you can interview five of them, you have the best source you could get. It is like interviewing a band about being on stage rather than interviewing their manager: which do you think is a more reliable source?
The alternative "A research report by a credit card company detailing purchases of teens between 2010 and 2014" must be ruled out, since it limits the subject to purchases made with credit cards, and not every teenager has got one.
