Evaluate your sources

"Developing a mental tuning fork for the credibility of a claim, gaining an instinct for when to trust and when to doubt a source - these are two critical components of becoming a confident and effective researcher."- Barbara Fister, from her article "The devil in the details: Media representation of "ritual abuse" and evaluation of sources" in Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 (May 2003).

Evaluation does not simply boil down to which sources are "good" or "bad." Evaluation involves critical consideration of which sources are both reliable and appropriate for whatever purpose you are using them for. Try your best to triangulate the information by comparing a variety of sources -- to check facts, see a different viewpoint, or to help you put a topic in context. While this page provides what I hope is useful information for general evaluation of sources, it really only scratches the surface of this challenging process.

Scholarly Journal v. Popular Magazine Articles

Sometimes an instructor might ask you to find a "scholarly" article instead of an article from a more popular source such as Time or Newsweek. So what are some of the differences between these two types of periodical articles? Click on the link above to compare their physical characteristics. Both types of periodicals are published by and serve a particular audience and purpose, so you also need to take that into consideration when evaluating.

Questions to help you evaluate your sources

Answer each of the BOLDED questions (using the questions in parentheses to guide you) for any source you'd like to use for research:

1. Who is the author? (What credentials does the author have? If an individual author is not named who is the editor or sponsor? If the source is a web site, is there a link to a "home page" to see who is sponsoring the page? )

2. What date was the information published and/or updated? (Is your topic time-sensitive so that you can only use the most updated information or is your topic more historically oriented?)

3. Are there any special features such as a "works cited" to back up the information? (If there's not an actual "works cited," are there any internal references to other sources? If yes, what kind of sources are they? Do these sources supplement the information given?)

4. What is the overall purpose and tone? (Who is the intended audience? If the source is a web site, you can check the domain name for clues (.edu, .org, .com, .mil, .net) to determine what type of page this might be. Is there an "about" or "what is" link from either the information page or the "home page" that outlines the purpose of the pages? See Who Do You Trust? for info on scholarship v. propaganda.)

5. What type of actual content are you getting? (To what depth does the source cover the topic? Does it seem to be a "surface" treatment? Are you getting a background overview, thorough coverage or an in-depth analysis for specific aspects of your topic?)

6. Based on your answers to questions 1-5, do you still feel confident in using the source for your particular research needs? Why or why not?

Since web site evaluation can be particularly tricky, here are 3 sample web sites you can use for practice in answering the questions above:

Topic: Does political bias exist in the media?

BONUS web evaluation! Click here and use what you've learned about web evaluation to prove whether or not this site should be used for academic research.

< Select & Search sources / Cite your sources >

Research Process

URL: http://www.alamo.edu/sac/library/faculty/dearmond/distance/evaluate.htm
Updated: 10/13/2006 By: Celita DeArmond (celitadearmond@gmail.com)
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