Basic Criteria for Evaluating Information
The following questions give you some good guidelines for recognizing what type of source (scholarly, popular, political, etc.) you are reading and for evaluating its relevance and usefulness to your topic and your research process in general. Prior to evaluating the source, however, it is important to remain attentive to the thoughtful and creative ideas and questions that you bring to your research process and that may be fueled in a first reading of this source. That is, scrutinizing the text for answers to the following list of questions will not necessarily give you all the "answers" you are looking for in your research; approach the text in the spirit of curiosity and creativity, guided as much by the following questions as by your own sets of questions and interests.
1. Authorship
- Who wrote the information?
- What are his or her credentials and professional affiliation?
- If there isn't an author listed, is the information authored by a government, corporate, or non-profit agency? Is the agency or organization recognized in the field in which you are studying, and is it suitable to address your topic?
2. Currency
- Does your topic require current information?
- Does the source include a date of publication or a "last updated" date?
3. Publishing Body
- Periodical articles
- Is the article from a mass media/popular magazine, a substantive news source, or a scholarly journal?
- Can you tell who the intended audience of the periodical is (general readers, experts, practitioners, etc.)?
- Is the purpose of the periodical to inform, educate, persuade, entertain, sell, etc.?
- Does it have a particular editorial slant?
- Books
- Is the book published by an academic press or a commercial publisher?
- If a commercial publisher, do they publish primarily scholarly or popular books?
- Web Sites
- To what domain does the site belong (edu, gov, org, com, net, etc.), and is this information important for your assessment of a site?
- Is the name of the individual or organization responsible for the overall site provided? Is there a link to information about their mission or purpose?
In general, popular sources do not require extensive prior knowledge of a topic. Scholarly sources assume a greater level of sophistication and knowledge on the part of the reader. See Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from other Periodicals for more information.
4. Point of View or Bias
- Is the information provided as fact or opinion?
- What kind of evidence is provided?
- Is the information consistent with information from other sources?
5. References to other sources
- Does the source include a bibliography or links to other web sites?
- What types of sources are cited (primary/secondary, popular/scholarly, current/historical, etc.)
6. Relevance to your topic and assignment
- Is the language and approach suitable to your level of expertise on the subject?
- What are your biases or assumptions on this subject and your expectations for the source?
- Does the source provide information that supports or challenges your point of view? Does it verify information from other sources you're using?
7. Format, Organization, and Appearance
- Does the individual source
or overall work include:
- Advertisements
- Table of contents and/or index
- Graphics - photographs, charts, tables, images
See also:
Tips for reading scholarly sources
Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from other Periodicals
Evaluating Information found on the Internet (from Johns Hopkins University)