Section 1

BEAM: Sorting Your Sources
by the Job They Do

Not every source in your research is doing the same job. A quick fact, a compelling statistic, and someone's strong opinion all serve different purposes in an essay — and knowing which is which changes how you use each one.

Before you can decide how carefully to vet a source, you have to know what job you're asking it to do. This framework — developed by writing scholar Joseph Bizup — sorts sources into three jobs.

Background

Helps you and your reader understand the issue itself, before anyone's taken a position. Not arguing anything, just explaining. This is often what shows up in your introduction, giving your reader the context they need before you state your claim.

  • How a policy, practice, or trend currently works
  • History of the issue — how it developed, what's changed
  • Basic facts or definitions your reader needs to follow your argument
Example: An article explaining how phone-restriction policies vary across different schools and what each type of policy actually involves.
Evidence

Gives you data or an example you can use to support your own claim.

  • Statistics
  • Results of a study or experiment
  • Documented examples or case studies
  • A specific, verifiable anecdote — not just an illustrative story, one you can trace to a real, checkable source
Example: A district's data showing discipline incidents before and after a phone ban went into effect.
Argument

A source where someone has taken a position on the issue. You can use it three ways: to support your own position, to explain the significance of your evidence (using someone else's reasoning to show why your data matters), or to argue against — representing a real counterposition you're responding to.

  • Op-eds and editorials
  • Position statements from organizations or advocacy groups
  • Expert commentary that takes a stance
Example: An op-ed arguing phone bans hurt students' ability to reach parents in an emergency — useful whether you're agreeing with it, using it to explain why safety data matters, or arguing against it.
A note on the name Bizup's original framework has a fourth letter, M, for Method — sources you borrow a writing or reasoning structure from, not information. It's real, but rare enough at this stage that it's not part of the sorting tool in this guide. If you ever find a source that's more useful for how it's written or argued than for what it says, that's what M would cover.