Evaluating Sources

Introduction

At this point in your research process, you may have identified dozens of potential sources. It is easy for writers to get so caught up in gathering sources that they forget to ask themselves how they will use these resources in their research. Now is a good time to get a little ruthless. Reading and taking notes takes time and energy, so you will want to focus on the most relevant sources.

You may benefit from seeking out sources that are current, or up to date. Depending on your topic, sources may become outdated relatively soon after publication, or they may remain useful for years. For instance, online social networking sites have evolved rapidly over the past few years. An article published in 2002 about this topic will not provide current information.

On the other hand, a research paper on elementary education practices might refer to studies published decades ago by influential child psychologists. When using websites for research, look on the web page to see when the site was last updated. Many non-functioning links are a sign that a website is not regularly updated. Do not be afraid to ask your instructor, tutors, and librarians for suggestions if you find that many of your most relevant sources are not especially reliable, or that your most reliable sources are not relevant.

Determining Whether a Source Is Reliable

All information sources are not created equal. Sources can vary greatly in terms of how carefully they are researched, written, edited, and reviewed for accuracy. Common sense will help you identify obviously questionable sources, such as tabloids that feature tales of alien abductions, or personal websites with glaring typos. Sometimes, however, a source’s reliability, or lack of it, is not so obvious. To evaluate your research sources, you will use critical thinking skills consciously and deliberately.

Sources you encounter will be written for distinct purposes and with particular audiences in mind, which may account for differences such as the following:

• How thoroughly writers cover a given topic
• How carefully writers research and document facts
• How editors review the work
• What biases or agendas affect the content
• The author’s or publication’s credentials

Academic Sources

A journal article written for an academic audience for the purpose of expanding scholarship in a given field will take an approach quite different from a magazine feature written to inform a general audience. Textbooks, hard news articles, and websites approach a subject from different angles as well. To some extent, the type of source provides clues about its overall depth and reliability. Use the following descriptions of types of sources to help you determine the quality of your sources.

• High Quality/Credible Sources provide the most in-depth information. They are written and reviewed by subject-matter experts. Examples: books published by university presses and articles in scholarly journals, such as Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature; trade books and magazines geared toward an educated general audience, such as Smithsonian Magazine; government documents; documents by reputable organizations, such as universities and research institutes.
• Varied Quality Sources are often useful; however, they do not cover subjects in as much depth as high-quality sources, and they are not always rigorously researched and reviewed. Some, such as popular magazine articles or company brochures, may be written to market a product or a cause. Textbooks and reference books are usually reliable, but they may not cover a topic in great depth. Use them with caution. Examples: news stories and feature articles (print or online) from reputable newspapers, magazines, or organizations, such as The New York Times or the Public Broadcasting Service; popular magazine articles, which may or may not be carefully researched and fact checked; documents by businesses and nonprofit organizations.
• The author’s or publication’s credentials

Questionable Sources are often written primarily to attract a large readership or to present the author’s opinions, and they are not subject to careful review. Generally, avoid using these as final sources. If you want to use a source that fits into this category, then carefully evaluate it using criteria below. Examples: loosely regulated or unregulated media content, such as Internet discussion boards, blogs, free online encyclopedias, talk shows, television news shows with obvious political biases, personal websites, and chat rooms. Remember: just because it exists, doesn’t mean it’s a good or useful source.

Even when you are using a type of source that is generally reliable, you will still need to evaluate the author’s credibility and the publication itself on an individual basis. To examine the author’s credibility, that is, how much you can believe of what the author has to say, examine his or her credentials. What career experience or academic study shows that the author has the expertise to write about this topic? Keep in mind that expertise in one field is no guarantee of expertise in another, unrelated area. For instance, an author may have an advanced degree in physiology, but this credential is not a valid qualification for writing about psychology. Check credentials carefully.

Just as important as the author’s credibility is the publication’s overall reputability. Reputability refers to a source’s standing and reputation as a respectable, reliable source of information.

An established and well-known newspaper, such as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, is more reputable than a college newspaper put out by comparatively inexperienced students. A website that is maintained by a well-known, respected organization and regularly updated is more reputable than one created by an unknown author or group.

Whenever you consult a source, always think carefully about the author’s or authors’ purpose in presenting the information. Few sources present facts completely objectively. In some cases, the source’s content and tone are significantly influenced by biases or hidden agendas.

Bias refers to favoritism or prejudice toward a particular person or group. For instance, an author may be biased against a certain political party and present information in a way that subtly or not so subtly makes that organization look bad. Bias can lead an author to present facts selectively, edit quotations to misrepresent someone’s words, and distort information.

Hidden agendas are goals that are not immediately obvious but influence how an author presents the facts. For instance, an article about the role of beef in a healthy diet would be questionable if it were written by a representative of the beef industry or by the president of an animal-rights organization. In both cases, the author would likely have a hidden agenda.

Summary

In sum, to evaluate a source, you should consider not only how current the source is but also criteria such as the type of source, its intended purpose and audience, the author’s (or authors’) qualifications, the publication’s reputation, any indications of bias or hidden agendas, and the overall professionalism of the source’s language, ideas, and design. You should consider these criteria as well as your overall impressions of the source’s quality. Read carefully, and notice how well authors present and support their statements. Stay actively engaged: do not simply accept a source’s words as truth.

The sorting process takes time as you move from having a lot of sources to really getting to know and quoting from the sources you rely on most for your project (or the minimum number of sources you need to use for this assignment). Think of a sideways cone with the open end on the left, and the narrow, closed end on the right. At the open end is all of the sources that you initially gathered and skimmed: the good, the maybe useful, the irrelevant. As you get to know the body of research about your topic, you will start to pick sources that represent different aspects or categories/subtopics of the broader topic. Each time you move closer to the narrow end of the cone, you’ll pick and really get to know those representative sources.

Sources:

“Evaluating and Processing Your Sources.” By by GSU Perimeter College English Department. Retrieved from: http://gsuideas.org/SCC/Evaluate/4.5%20Evaluating%20and%20Processing%20Your%20Sources.html Licensed under: CC-BY 4.0.