EVALUATING INFORMATION RESOURCES
How to Evaluate the Information Sources You Find
Evaluating the authority, usefulness, and reliability of the information you find is a crucial step in the process of library research. The questions you ask about books, periodical articles, multimedia titles, or Web pages are similar whether you're looking at a citation to the item, a physical item in hand, or an electronic version on a computer.
Use the following criteria to help determine the quality and usefulness of the information you have found, whether the material is from books, articles, or the Internet.
All Sources:
Here are some of the questions you should ask when yo uconsider the appropriateness of a particular book, article, media resoruce, or website for your research.
- AUTHOR: Is the author knowledgeable about the topic?
- Who is the author? Is the author identifiable?
- What else has the author published on the topic?
- What are the author's credentials—do they have a formal role in a particular institution?
- What is their educational background, or experience?
- What are the basic values or goals of the organization or institution?
- Does the author cite their resources?
- PURPOSE: Why was the source created?
- Does it have an economic value for the author or publisher?
- Is it an educational resource?
- What (research) questions does it attempt to answer?
- Does it have objectivity?
- Does it fill any other personal, professional, or societal needs?
- Who is the intended audience?
- Is it for scholars or general audience?
- CONTENT : Is the content reliable and complete?
- What is the scope, theme, or purpose of the source? Read the preface, table of contents, and index of the book. Read the introduction or abstract and look over the references of an article.
- Is the content ACCURATE? Look over the citations. Check the references. Can you verify facts by looking in other sources?
- Is the information fact, opinion, or propaganda? Sometimes it is not always easy to separate fact from opinion.
- What is the POINT OF VIEW? Is the information in an objective and impartial style, or is the content designed to sway opinion? Is the author’s position clearly stated?
- Does the publication have a particular editorial position?
- Is the publication sponsored by any other companies or organizations? Do the sponsors have particular biases?
- Is there evidence of valid, extensive RESEARCH? Does the information appear to be valid and well-researched? Are there citations and/or bibliography. Note errors or omissions.
- DATE OF PUBLICATION: Is the publication date appropriate for your topic?
- When the source was first published?
- On Web pages, the date of the last revision is usually at the bottom of the home page, sometimes every page.
- When was the web page las updated?
- Is the source current or out-of-date for your topic? Topic areas of continuing and rapid development, such as the sciences, demand more current information. On the other hand, topics in the humanities often require material that was written many years ago.
- What has changed in your field of study since the publication date?
- Are there any published reviews, responses or rebuttals?
- Were there any apparent barriers to publication?
- Where, geographically, was it originally published, and in what language?
- What version or edition of the source are you consulting?
- Are there differences in editions, such as new introductions or footnotes?
- In what medium?
- Was it published online or in print? Both?
- Was it self-published?
- Is it a blog post? A YouTube video? A TV episode? An article from a print magazine?
- What does the medium tell you about the intended audience?
- What does the medium tell you about the purpose of the piece?
- Were there outside editors or reviewers?
- SOURCE: Is the information from scholarly or popular sources?
- Primary? Secondary?
- Is the material primary or secondary in nature? Primary sources are raw material of the research process, the first information published on a topic. Secondary sources are based on primary sources.
- Books - Look at the publisher (university presses publish scholarly material).
- Where was it published?
- Who was the publisher? Was it a University Press?
- Was it formally peer-reviewed? (did you check that box while searching?)
- Articles – Is the periodical a scholarly or popular source?
Newspapers provide current information, news stories and commentaries.
Popular magazines generally provide current events overviews, written for a larger audience than scholarly journals and rarely include citations or bibliographies. Author is usually a staff writer or a journalist, name and credentials often not provided. Articles are not evaluated by experts in the field, but by editors on staff
Scholarly journals publish reports of original research. Articles are usually more structured and may include these sections: abstract, literature review, methodology, results, conclusion, and bibliography. Author is often an expert or specialist in the field with credentials often provided. Articles often reviewed and critically evaluated by a board of experts in the field (refereed)
- Electronic Source – Articles and books accessed through databases provided by an academic library are generally reliable sources.
- DOCUMENTATION :
- Did they cite their sources?
- If not, do you have any other means to verify the reliability of their claims?
- Who do they cite?
- Is the author affiliated with any of the authors they’re citing?
- Are the cited authors’ part of a particular academic movement or school of thought?
- Look closely at the quotations and paraphrases from other sources:
- Did they appropriately represent the context of their cited sources?
- Did they ignore any important elements from their cited sources?
- Are they cherry-picking facts to support their own arguments?
- Did they appropriately cite ideas that were not their own?
