The big idea: Criterion A asks you to outline and justify your range of sources.
Justifying a source means saying what it can tell you about your question — and what it cannot.
| Source | Good evidence for | What it cannot settle |
|---|---|---|
| Sacred text or commentary | What the tradition holds to be authoritative, and how it reads itself | What any particular community actually does |
| Scholarly writing | Context, and the state of the debate | How this community understands itself now |
| Interview with an adherent | Lived practice, and what it means to that person | What the whole tradition holds |
| Observation of worship | What actually happens on the day you were there | What usually happens, or what it means |
| Media and online material | Current events and self-presentation | Anything, until you have checked reliability, accuracy and perspective |
Primary and secondary, both: A study built only on reading has no fieldwork to reflect on in criterion D. A study built only on one visit has no preliminary research for criterion A.
The criteria are written to reward using both.
Free preview
This is the free notes preview
You're reading the free notes. Aimnova Pro unlocks the full study experience — and you can try it with your first topic free to keep:
- FlashcardsLock in vocabulary and key terms with spaced repetition.
- Practice questionsAnswer exam-style questions and get instant AI marking.
- Mock exams & past-paper vaultSit full mocks and see exactly how examiners award marks.
- Personalised study planA daily plan built around your exam date and weak areas.
The guide's ethical guidance is a paragraph of prose, read once at the start. In practice the decisions arrive one at a time, weeks apart. Step through where each one actually happens.
Five points in an investigative study where an ethical decision is made, and what the guide requires at each.
Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in full study mode.
The one that costs marks as well as trust: Quoting an interviewee out of context.
The guide names it specifically. And it is also a criterion-D failure, because a reflection built on a misread quotation is reflecting on the wrong thing.
Study smarter, not longer
Most students waste 40% of study time on topics they already know. Our AI tracks your progress and optimizes every minute.
Before, during, after
Before — prepare and ask permission
Do the reading first, so you are not asking an adherent to explain the basics. Write your questions in advance; they go in an appendix and cost no words. Ask permission to record, and say what the study is for.
During — ask open, listen long
"What does this practice mean to you?" gets you evidence. "So it's about community, isn't it?" gets you your own words back. Let a pause run — the second half of an answer is usually the useful half.
After — check before you use it
Consider the interviewee's authority and appropriateness to your question. A young member of a congregation is excellent evidence about their own experience and weak evidence about doctrine — and saying which is analysis, not hedging.
Read first, ask open, then check whose view this is evidence of.
Uncritical use
- Repeating what an interviewee said as fact about the tradition
- Treating one visit as typical
- Taking a website's account of a community at face value
- The guide: material "should not be used uncritically"
Critical use
- "One member of this congregation described it as…"
- "On the occasion observed…"
- Checking reliability, accuracy and perspective
- And still taking the account seriously — criticism is not dismissal
How this is tested. The guide repeats its representation rule in the IA section as well as in the teaching section, which is unusual and deliberate.
The rule, in the guide's own terms: Representation must be evidence based, balanced and neutral, as opposed to stereotypical and biased.
And generalizations that fail to reflect the internal diversity of belief and practice within major religious traditions should be avoided.
Evidence based
- Every claim traceable to a source you named
- "I felt" is evidence about you, not about them
Balanced
- Where the community differs internally, say so
- Do not let one articulate interviewee become the tradition
Neutral
- Describe; do not rank, and do not explain away
- Your verdict on whether a belief is true is not part of the study
Why this is not just politeness: The people in your study may read it. Some of them may be your classmates' families, or your own.
The guide's rule and the ordinary decency of the situation point the same way — which is why it is easy to follow once you notice it.