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Evaluate Your Sources

Don't be caught using unreliable information. Learn to fact check and evaluate your sources to identify and use credible ones.

Accuracy Refers to Whether or Not the Information Is Correct

 

Some Questions to Ask:  Where to Look for Answers:
  • Is the information provided correct?
     
  • Does what the author is telling you seem likely? Are there typos or grammatical errors on the page or site?
     
  • Can you verify the information from your own knowledge or other sources?
     
  • What citations or references support the author’s claims? 
  • Compare what the source says with what you’ve learned in class or your research
     
  • Review the page or site for grammatical or spelling errors
     
  • Use Lateral Reading to find information about the source and/or author from other sources.

Examples

Article Disproved

Even though the article below looks super useful and authoritative, be careful. This article, which was published in The Lancet, a well-respected medical journal, reports original research proving that there is a link between childhood vaccinations and autism. A good researcher is not going to stop with one source.

Further research reveals that this study has been refuted and the original article in The Lancet was retracted.

Subjects: Research Tips
Tags: evaluate, fake, how_to, howto, misinformation, news
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses.