Evaluating Sources
Evaluating the information you locate is crucial when doing research. Below is a list of some questions you might consider as you look at the possible sources for your paper. Most questions apply to both print and electronic resources.
- Who is the author? What are the author’s credentials? What is the author’s educational background? Has the author written other works on this topic?
- How current is the information? Has the information been superseded by new information?
- Does the work have a particular bias and does the author make the bias clear?
- Is the publisher known for scholarly research or is the journal/magazine known to be academic? Scholarly journals contain articles that have been reviewed by either a panel of experts or by a knowledgeable editor. In most cases, the articles contained in these journals include citations, either as footnotes or as a bibliography. Other periodicals that are not quite academic, such as “The Wall Street Journal” or “Scientific American,” have good reputations and can often lead to academic sources. Such periodicals can help identify current research, but should not be the sole source of research for your paper.
- Is the information provided backed up by facts or is it opinion? Is the information based on reasonable evidence? Can you verify the information you’ve located by finding it in other sources?
- What is the intended audience? Undergraduate students? Specialists in a field?
- Is the information provided in a grammatically correct way? Is everything spelled correctly? Is the information provided in a logical, well-ordered manner?
- Is the web information stable, that is, can you retrieve the information from the site in subsequent attempts? When the site is updated, are the changes noted by the author or host?
Here are a few sites you can use to get more information on evaluating Web resources:
- Evaluating Web Sites (Cornell)
- Evaluating Web Pages (UC Berkeley)
- Evaluating Internet Information (Johns Hopkins)
