Choosing Sources for Your Project
During your research process, you'll engage with a variety of sources. Before you decide to use any individual resource in your paper, you will want to consider two factors: reliability and value.
Reliability
- Do I trust this?
- Is this author knowledgeable about the subject?
- Has this been vetted and edited enough to ensure the content is accurate?
- Is it accurate?
- Is this current enough that it isn’t missing any major recent developments?
- How was the research conducted?
- Do those methods make sense?
Value
- Why do I need this information?
- How am I going to use it?
- Does it help answer my research question?
Use these questions in combination with the evaluation strategies above to determine whether and how to use information in your research project. Keep in mind what sources are useful depends on what questions you’re asking!
Evaluation Basics
Quick guide to considerations when evaluating any source:
- Expertise - Who wrote this? What kind of expertise do they have?
- Purpose - why was this created? Who is the intended audience?
- Currency - when was this published?
- Documentation - what sources do they cite?
- Understanding Bias - What might the author’s biases be and how does that impact the source? What might my biases be and how does that impact my searching?
- Power -In what format was this resource published? What communities does the author belong to?
- Relevance - How is it relevant to your research topic? What information can I use from this source to answer my research question?
