| Criteria | Questions to Ask | To Think About |
|---|---|---|
| Currency |
What is the copyright date? Is the information current? Is there a newer edition? |
Books take several years to publish. Health, technology, and science, the more current, the better. With historical references, history, and biographies, the date is less important. |
| Relevance |
Does the title indicate that the book is too specific? What is the target audience? How does the book address the topic? |
With looking at the title and subtitle, the author's intention and real meaning behind the book is usually indicated by the subtitle. The table of contents outlines the book for you. Is it relevant or what sections are relevant for your topic specifically? Use the index. |
| Authority |
Is the author an export in the field? What is the author's credentials? Is the publisher well known? Does the publisher stand to benefit from the argument? |
Look at the about the author in the front or back of the book. Are they relevant to the topic? Have they written about the topic before? Search on the catalog for articles written by the author. |
| Accuracy |
What sources did the author use? Does the book provide a reference section? Does the book have a table of contents? |
Did the author use sources? What kind did they use, if any? Did they use graphs or charts? What sources did they use? |
| Purpose |
Why was the book written? Does the book address the subject from a specific time? |
| Criteria | Questions to Ask | To Think About |
|---|---|---|
|
Currency |
When was the article published? Is the information current? Does it need to be? |
Peer reviewed articles take time to publish. Keep this in mind when looking for timely articles.
|
| Relevance |
Does the scholarly article offer in-depth information about the topic? Is the title specific or too general? Who is the audience for the article? |
Reading the title and subtitle is important as it can tell you the real purpose of the article. Read the abstract and conclusion of the article. These will explain Read the introduction of the article. This will tell you why the article was |
| Authority |
Is the author an expert in the field? Are the author's credentials provided? What institution/company is the author affiliated with? Have they written in other publications? Is the article peer reviewed? Does the author stand to gain anything from the research presented in the article? |
Find information about the author's work or background. This is sometimes located in the beginning or the end of the article. Has the author written any books on the topic or similar topics? Search the Library's catalog. Has the author written any other articles with similar topics? |
| Accuracy |
What sources does the author use? Does the article provide a reference section? Does the article have graphs? Is the journal where it was published peer reviewed? |
Journal articles need to include their references at the end of their articles. Check this for accuracy. The reference section provides you with what type of sources the author used for the article. What did they use? Peer reviewed journals go through an evaluation by an author's peers when being reviewed. This usually meets the expected standards of |
| Purpose |
When was this written? Does the author or publisher make money off of the publication? Does the article provide you with an abstract? |
Read the article abstract. This helps you get a feel for what the article is about and what the author's intentions is. This also gives you an idea of why the article was written. Read the conclusion for the author's summary and analysis. |
The first thing to do when using a website as a source, is check the URL.
Anyone can make a website and anyone can publish anything on the web.
The ABCD of Website Evaluation Chart
Just as if you were looking to see if your source is credible for a research paper, you can also check to see if your source if your everyday information is credible as well.
The SIFT section was adapted from Mike Caulfield's "Check, Please" course. This can be found at http://lessons.checkplease.cc.
The text and media of this site, where possible, is released into the CC BY, and free for reuse and revision. We ask people copying this course to leave this note intact, so that students and teachers can find their way back to the original (periodically updated) version if necessary. We also ask librarians and reporters to consider linking to the canonical version.As the authors of the original version have not reviewed any other copy's modifications, the text of any site not arrived at through the above link should not be sourced to the original authors.
When looking at information, stop and ask yourself if you know or trust the author. Do you know the publisher or trust the publisher? Is it a website? Do you trust the source? Don't share the information or trust the website until you do. Is the information up to date (when was it published, posted, printed)? Who published it? Do they have something to gain from this information (money, persuasion, media clicks)?
Who created the content that you are looking at and are they really qualified to share and comment on the information? Use the internet to find how who the person is who wrote the information. Use the stop verification step. This is where you answer the questions you asked yourself in stop. This is where you will begin to read "laterally" across multiple sources instead of a single source ("vertically").
Simply find other sources. Can you find other information that corroborates the information? This will help you find if the information is true.
And sometimes you still might not know. And that is OK! This is where the better coverage comes in. If you want to know about the claim and less about the source, then is there better information out there about it from trusted resources? Don't sink time in something that is coming up with worms and hop on to finding more.
One of the most important aspect of the internet is knowing that a lot of the information we are given (especially on social media) is stripped from context. Things can be intentionally misleading, videos clipped out of context, or quotes gotten wrong. Tracing contexts back to the source can be easily done with the technology available to you!
Popular information or popular articles are information or articles you would find for normal, everyday consumption. They are for the general public to get the idea rather than those who need the scholarly insight. Articles found on popular sources may not have included sources, often are less detailed, and are usually a summery-level of the information that you would need to get the information you should have. Popular articles could be a good jumping point to what is being talked about your topic or even where to start with your topic, but you should dig deeper to find more scholarly articles for support.
On the flip side, scholarly articles are written for a in-depth reading of the topic at hand by specialists in that field. These are usually found in journals or books. Usually, these articles go through a peer review to get published, but not all the time. Scholarly articles cite their sources and references which you can use to find and use in your own research.
We talked about peer review but what does that even mean? Peer reviewed articles are articles written by experts in the field and that are evaluated by reviewed by the scholar's peers to determine if the work is accurate, qualitative, and meet the expectations of the field's standards.
First, the researcher submits their paper to the publication to be evaluated.They are checked for validity, originality, and for being complete by experts. Any comments are sent back to the researcher for either more research or editing before the editor of the publication looks at the final draft. If the editor accepts the draft, then the article gets published.
This is why peer reviewed articles are highly important in research as many articles get vetted through this process through people of their trade.
Librarian Morgan found the above podcast episode interesting as it relates to research. Dr. Sydnee McElroy discusses how to shift through all of the research that is available on all of the internet and how she does it for their podcast and in her practice.
Library 160: Introduction to College-Level Research Copyright © 2021 by Iowa State University Library Instruction Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
