Evaluation of Research Sources
EVALUATE your Information
Read information you find with a critical eye! Consider
these points when evaluating books, articles and Web sites:
•
Who?
o Who wrote it? What ideas is the author trying to promote?
Does the author seem to favor one idea or another? Is there
a likelihood of bias? Could this affect the conclusions
drawn?
Check:
o that the author's name is given
o where the author works
o who published the article
o the type of journal in which the article is published
(hint: most scholarly research appears in journals that are
refereed or reviewed by peers - sometimes called "peer
reviewed" journals); or the reputation of the newspaper in
which the article is published.
•
What?
o Do the conclusions in the paper seem justified? Does the
research make sense - i.e. if you were conducting this
research, would you feel comfortable drawing the same
conclusions based on the results?
o While you may not feel qualified to judge research in
areas that are unfamiliar to you, evaluating a research
paper involves little more than being critical of what you
read and using a little common sense.
•
Where?
o Where's the information from? (see "Who?")
o If you found the site through a general search engine
such as Google, Is the site one that is somewhat likely to
be trustworthy, e.g., a domain such as .gov, or .edu ?
Check:
o the type of journal the article is published in or the
reputation of the newspaper
o if the research was done by the author ("primary" source),
or
o if the author is summarizing others' research ("secondary
source) - and if so are the sources cited (i.e. footnotes
and/or a bibliography)?
o that statistics given have sources too!
•
When?
o How old is the information? Is it too old to be useful
(this can vary, depending on the area & type of
information!)?
Check:
o when was the article written?
o when was a web page last updated?
o is it possible that there are newer statistics?
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