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Common Core LiteracyGrades 11–12Writing

WHST.11-12.8: Weigh Each Source for the Task and Cite It

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.8 · Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.

Get the Cornell Notes TemplateAll 29 Grades 11–12 Literacy Standards

The Official Wording

Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.

Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Writing: History, Science & Technical Subjects · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What WHST.11-12.8 Means in Plain English

Seniors search with exact phrases, database filters and date limits, then judge each source against this task and reader: a maker’s spec sheet is detailed but self-interested, a lab study is rigorous but narrow. They weave in what the paragraph needs, lean on no one source and cite in APA.

Grades 9 to 10 (WHST.9-10.8) judge how useful each source is to the research question. Grades 11 to 12 weigh strengths and limits for the task, purpose and audience, and guard against overreliance on any one source. This last band is the college and career readiness goal for using sources.

WHST.11-12.8 I Can Statements

  • I can run advanced searches that find authoritative sources.
  • I can name each source’s strength and limit for my task.
  • I can cite sources in APA without leaning on one.

WHST.11-12.8 Worked Example

Both paragraphs draw on the same four search results. One trusts the source that promises the most; the other weighs all four for the trainer’s decision.

Prompt

The athletic trainer is deciding whether the cross-country and soccer teams can use wrist-worn heart-rate monitors instead of chest straps to keep interval workouts in the right training zone. For your health sciences research paper, write a paragraph answering her question. A database search for “optical heart rate” AND accuracy AND exercise, limited to the last five years, turned up four sources: the PulseBand company’s product page, claiming its watch reads “within 2 beats per minute of a chest strap”; a peer-reviewed study by Pruitt and Osei (2023) of 40 college athletes, which found wrist readings within 5 beats per minute at rest and while jogging but off by 12 to 20 during sprints; a 2024 blog post by running coach Dana Lusk saying her athletes “love” their wrist monitors; and a 2022 review of 31 studies by Garrity and colleagues in a sports medicine journal, concluding that optical sensors lag behind sudden changes in exercise intensity.

Not YetWrist heart-rate monitors are very accurate. According to PulseBand, their watch reads “within 2 beats per minute of a chest strap” (PulseBand, n.d.). Athletes love them too, so the teams should switch.The paragraph rests on the one source with something to sell and never names that limit. The coach’s blog is treated as evidence of accuracy when it reports only that athletes like the device, and the study and the review, the two sources that answer the trainer’s question about sprints, never appear.
Meets the StandardWrist-worn monitors are accurate enough for steady running but not for the sprint intervals the trainer most wants to track. PulseBand’s product page claims its watch reads “within 2 beats per minute of a chest strap” (PulseBand, n.d.), but a manufacturer has an interest in its best figure and does not say under what conditions it was measured. Pruitt and Osei’s peer-reviewed test of 40 college athletes is more useful for this decision: wrist readings stayed within 5 beats per minute at rest and while jogging but missed by 12 to 20 during sprints (Pruitt & Osei, 2023). Their sample was college athletes, not high school runners, a limit the review offsets by pooling 31 studies and reaching the same conclusion, that optical sensors lag behind sudden changes in intensity (Garrity et al., 2022). A running coach’s blog reports that her athletes love their wrist monitors (Lusk, 2024), which speaks to whether teams will wear them, not to whether the numbers are right. For interval days, then, chest straps remain the better tool, while wrist monitors can handle easy runs.Each source arrives with a strength and a limit tied to the trainer’s specific question: the manufacturer’s motive and missing conditions, the study’s rigor and its college sample, the review’s breadth, the blog’s narrow use. The study and the review carry the claim together, so no one source holds it up, the blog is used only for what it can show, and every source is cited in APA style.
Moves to Use
Search with exact phrases, Boolean operators and date limits, and note why each result earns a place.Name each source’s strength and limit for this task and reader.Use each source only for what it can actually show.Let two or more sources carry the claim, and cite every one in the discipline’s format.

Common Mistakes with WHST.11-12.8

The source that sells the product

A paragraph built on a company’s own accuracy claim

Try this: Have students note who produced each source and what it stands to gain, then check whether an independent source agrees.

Using a source for what it cannot show

“Athletes love them, so they are accurate.”

Try this: Ask students to write beside each citation the one question that source can answer, then cut any claim it cannot support.

Citation format by guesswork

(Pruitt and Osei, 2023, page 4) in one paragraph and a bare URL in the next

Try this: Give students a one-page APA guide for this assignment and have partners check each in-text citation against the reference list.

Where WHST.11-12.8 Fits

Comes BeforeWHST.9-10.8Use advanced searches, judge how useful each source is to the research question, and cite in a standard format.
AlongsideRST.11-12.8Evaluate the hypotheses, data and conclusions in a science or technical text, the reading behind judging a study’s limits.W.11-12.8The same source expectations in English class research.
Comes NextWHST.11-12.9Draw evidence from the sources found and weighed to support analysis, reflection and research.

Practice WHST.11-12.8

Rubric GeneratorFree ToolMake a source-use rubric with rows for the search, the judgment of each source, balance across sources and APA citation.SourcesBalanceCitation
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Quick Check

  1. What limitation does the strong paragraph name for the manufacturer, the study and the blog?
  2. Why is the coach’s blog not evidence of accuracy?
  3. How does the strong paragraph avoid overreliance on any one source?

WHST.11-12.8: Other Names

WHST.11-12.8CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.8

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.