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Evaluating Sources

Image by Rochester Institute of Technology http://library.rit.edu/liv/6-1 CC BY 3.0 AU http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/

Use these slides to learn how to:

Identify what to look for when selecting resources

Judge if information will be relevant for your assignments

Recognise if a source is credible

Find more information

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What to look for

1. Who is the publisher? 2. Who is the author?

Are they a respected source? Ideally, try to use the best publishers for your subject area.

Does the information come from an author or an organisation that has authority to speak on the topic?

A newspaper or magazine written for the general public has less credibility than a journal written for scholars and experts.

Do they cite their credentials? Credible authors usually state their qualifications and where they work.

Does the publisher have a reputation for scholarly or popular publishing? Popular publishing is not necessarily bad, but the sources will not be as good as scholarly sources.

Authors who are experts have more credibility than journalists, general writers or anonymous authors.

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What to look for

3. What evidence does the author use to back up their arguments?

4. Is the information objective?

What type of research have they performed or cited?

Is the information presented with a bias?

Has the information been peer-reviewed? This is when other experts in the same field have said this research is good and worth publishing.

You can still use sources that have a specific perspective, but be aware of both sides of the argument.

Be sure there is enough documentation to help you decide whether the source is reliable. Look for footnotes, a bibliography, credits or quotations.

How valid are the author’s conclusions? Are they based on personal opinion, interviews, research or experience?

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What to look for

5. Timeliness 6. Point of view

When was the information created or published? There should always be a date.

What is the purpose of the information? Is it informative or trying to persuade people? Are all of the facts being presented?

Is timeliness important for your topic? Does the research need to have been published recently?

Has information been deliberately left out? Authors may do this to suit their argument, in which case they are not a reliable source.

Some information will be valid over time, while other information may become obsolete or discredited by new research.

What kind of language is being used? The writing should be objective, not emotionally charged or generalised. There shouldn’t be mistakes with grammar and spelling.

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What to look for – Websites

Use the same principles for evaluating websites as you would books and articles.

Additional things to consider:

Reliable websites usually have a more professional feel than unreliable websites – click on the examples to the right and see the difference.

Broken links can mean no one is looking after the site and other information may be out of date.

Note the web address and the type of institution publishing the information. They may give biased information that supports their perspective or agenda.

Always check when a webpage was last updated. Is it up-to-date enough for your research?

Domain identification help: Look for advertisements; this can mean that information is more commercial and potentially biased.

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Need more information?

See the online tutorial on Evaluating Information Sources http://latrobe.libguides.com/evaluatingsources

See the online video What is a scholarly journal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6WVJEXJj_o

See the online video Evaluating Sources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-y9VzE2YTs

See the online video Why Can’t I Just Google? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N39mnu1Pkgw

Attributions for pictures used in this slide