LibGuides: First Year Student Research: Evaluate Sources

Evaluate Sources

Evaluating Sources

Be critical in choosing sources for your research. Take a few minutes to quickly scan and examine the source by yourself. Then answer the following questions about the source.

What would you call your source (or what type of source is your source)?
Who wrote and published your source? Does/why does this matter?
What do you know about how your article was created? Does/why does this matter?
What information could you get from your source for your assignment? Which specialist might it be most useful for?
Would this source be appropriate to use in your assignment? Why or why not?

If you want to dig deeper, try these questions from Troy Swanson's "Information is Personal"

How do you know what you know?
What information do you trust?
What causes you to disagree with a piece of information?
What counts as epertise?
Who can publish on a specific issue?
Who cannot and why?
Whose voice is included/excluded?
What information is trusted by society?

Interactive Media Bias Chart® 5.0
Take a look at this chart created by ad fontes media. It’s a unique way of laying out the complex media landscape in two dimensions: reliability, on the vertical axis, and bias, on the horizontal axis. As with all information sources, take these ratings with a grain of salt and make your own opinion.

Comparing Different Sources

From NCSU: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/scholarly-popular/