Research Help  Tags: tutorial research help  

On This Page

• What is a Credible Source?
• Why Evaluate
• Evaluating Online Scholarly Content
• Evaluating Web Sources
• Test Yourself
  

Learn to evaluate your sources with this tutorial entitled, Credible Sources Count!, from Vaughan Memorial Library.  It only takes about 10 minutes and is fun to work through.

You need to ensure that you are using the highest quality sources of information for your academic work. As you gather information for your research project, you'll look at many different sources: books, articles from databases, Web documents, interviews, videos, and more.  For each source you use you want to make sure it is:

Relevant - Does it answer your research question?

Current - Is the content presented current enough for your project?

Accurate - Is the information provided correct?

Authoritative - Does the author have expertise on the topic about which she is writing?

Objective - Is there bias or a slant given to the information provided?

You can feel pretty confident that books you get from the library and articles you find in the library's research databases are reliable and credible because you know those have gone through a traditional editorial process; someone or some group has checked all the facts and arguments the author made and then deemed them suitable for publishing.  You still have to think about whether or not the book or article is current and suitable for your project but you can feel confident that it is a credible, reliable source.

Has your instructor ever asked you to use only scholarly articles?  Without holding the journal in your hand it can be confusing to know if what you are looking at is a scholarly article.  This video tutorial from University of California, Berkeley will teach you how to evaluate your online article to decide if it is scholarly.  Remember, you can find online articles in a library database or the free Web by using Google Scholar.

When you use Web documents there is no editor except YOU!  You need to train yourself to look at Web sources with a very critical eye.  Pay special attention to:

• Identify the Author or sponsor of the source
• Determine the Purpose of the Web site
• Identify any Bias viewpoints that could influence the content of the resource
• Note how Current or up-to-date the resource is, also note things like how reliable the links are and what types of resources they point to
  
• In addition, does the content makes sense in relation to everything else you've learned about your topic

Use the Web Page Evaluation Checklist from the University of California, Berkeley to train your eye to scan Web resources to evaluate them.

Critically review the two web sites below to decide which one would be the most reliable Web resource to use for a paper on the swine flu.  You may want to use the University of California, Berkeley's Web Page Evaluation Checklist.

• The Flu Case
  
  
• Questions and Answers: 2009 H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) and You

Ask yourself:

1. Does either source contain bias in viewpoints, in sites to which they link, or in language they use?
2. Who is the author or sponsor of each site?  What are their credentials pertaining to public health issues?
3. What types of sources do the sites use?  Are they well documented?
4. Try to see who links to each site.  You can use the link: Google Advanced search operator to look that up.
5. Why is the site on the Web?  What is its purpose?