Ensure that your publication is founded on robust research, sound evidence, reliable information and careful thought. Readers will see through irrelevant additions and slipshod conclusions, and these can damage the credibility of your content.

Evidence can be quantitative (based on numerical data) or qualitative (based on observations and descriptions). See Writing about evidence for more details of the different types of evidence, and how to write about evidence clearly and accurately.

To be convincing, your evidence should be:

• from reliable sources (such as an established publisher, a reputable institution, a known expert or a peer-reviewed journal)
• systematic in some way (rather than anecdotal), even when the evidence presented is of a qualitative nature
• based on recent and up-to-date sources
• in line with the sources and types of evidence used by others in the field.

Choose your sources carefully. Research is only as good as the sources. Make sure you use sources that can be depended on for accuracy and completeness.

Think about the importance of one topic compared with another and weight the level of attention they receive accordingly. If topics are equally important or points of view merit equal consideration, it would be logical to give them approximately the same amount of space in your document.

You may need to explain why more detail is provided for one topic than another. This could be because:

• some topics are more important than others (eg a publication examining the history of immigrants in Australia would likely devote more space to arrivals from China than to arrivals from Canada because of the greater number and influence of Chinese immigrants)
• some points of view may have more validity than others (eg although a scientific text might discuss the arguments put forward by proponents and opponents of vaccination, this does not mean both points of view should receive equal weight and therefore space)
• more information is available for some parts of the topic than others (eg a biography of the various wives of Henry VIII may emphasise some more than others, because of differences in their longevity and the documentation available).