As the amount of published information continues to grow exponentially, it is important to think critically and evaluate your sources. Content is published by individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and countries, without any automatic formal review.
Some sources are more trustworthy and more appropriate to academic research than others.
There are many criteria that you can use to evaluate a source. We recommend to critically think the following:
Author
Questions to think about:
Check the authors of books and articles and especially those of blogs and websites. Here are some factors to consider:
Review
Questions to think about:
Books, articles, and newspapers have all some form of review process. Scholarly books and articles will be reviewed by editors and experts in the field to check for accuracy and to assess the research methodology. Newspapers, magazines and professional journals are reviewed by an editor. Many sources you can find online (tweets, blogs, youtube videos etc.) have not had any review. That means that there has been no one to check for accuracy.
The below will give you an idea for the number of review fact-checking the ideas on some types of sources and the total time spent by reviewers.
Image adapted from"Know Your Sources" by Portland Community College Library.
Date
Questions to think about:
The currency of information is essential for many types of research and less for others. In many fields such as health care, legislation, and finance, current information is most important. For research that reflects people and events of the past historical information is essential though.
Sources
Questions to think about:
Scholarly sources will always list the sources used, generally in the form of a bibliography/ reference list. Other information types, like websites and blogs, might list sources but may not. Be skeptical of information that doesn't list a source.
Bias
Questions to think about:
All information can have bias. Being aware of what a source is trying to convince you of and why can help you decide whether it is trustworthy or useful.
It is also very important to be aware of your own biases.
Confirmation Bias (see Glossary)
Image source: Farnam Street
Source: Evaluating Sources, Ithaca College Library
Source: A Dictionary of Business Research Methods. Oxford University Press.
Most library databases provide a check-box that allows you to limit your results to peer-reviewed only.
Image source: Understanding science created by University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, and the Regents of the University of California.
Remember that you cannot read everything. Ensure that the texts you spend your time on are the important ones. Instructions on how to evaluate resources will also help you to choose the most appropriate sources for your paper.
It is not necessary to read every word to obtain meaning from a text or to locate information. You can apply a range of techniques in order to extract from texts the information you need.
What are you going to get out of this text?
Learn how to skim and scan your text and other tips below. This will help you to understand if the text is useful or interesting and decide whether just some sections are relevant or whether you need to read it all.
Keep a record of the necessary details for any source you use (either manually or by using a refernce tool, such as Refworks) as soon as you start taking notes. Do not wait until you have finished reading, as you may forget, or misplace the text. Also, make sure you know which of your notes are paraphrases of someone else's ideas, direct quotes, or your own ideas.
Source: Reading Techniques, Monash University Library