Read Carefully: The Importance of Understanding Your Sources

One of the requirements of good journalism is getting information from reliable sources. Normally, when you see that a writer has picked sources she trusts, you are more likely to trust what she reports.

But there's an important element of having good sources that sometimes gets neglected or overlooked: You have to understand what your sources mean. It isn't enough to find great sources of information — from scientific research to political analysis — if you misunderstand, and therefore misrepresent, the information.