Evaluating

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Evaluating







Evaluate/Interrogate the Reliability of Each Source

Each source you are using for your research has the potential to help you, but in order for you to be sure that it is superb, you will need to do some investigating. You can use these guides:






Or use the list of criteria below to examine your source for validity and credibility.


Print and Database

Once you have located your sources, you need to evaluate them by considering the qualifications of the writer, the reputation of the publisher, the general accuracy of the source, and the point of view. Use this Checklist to help you:

Qualifications of the Writer
  • Look at the credentials of the author: institutional affiliation (where he or she works), educational background, past writings, experience, area of expertise (Ormonroyd, 2004)
  • Look at the back cover or the inside of the jacket for brief information in the form of blurbs.

Reputation of the Publisher
  • Does the publisher specifically publish only certain types of books, or within a certain topic range (i.e. a science publishing house)?
  • You may also consult the teacher or library media specialist for additional information about publishers.

Accuracy
  • Look at the bibliography and footnotes; an extensive bibliography and articles or chapters well documented with footnotes usually indicate careful verification of the facts.
  • Check the copyright date; an old source may be inaccurate.

Point of View
  • The point of view of a source is influenced by its purpose--to entertain, inform, or educate.
  • Some sources, such as news magazines, reflect a specific political or social point of view. You can often determine a magazine's or book's point of view by reading editorials or prefatory material.

Date of Publication
  • Is the source current or out-of-date for your topic?
  • Be careful of the topic; the sciences demand more current information because of rapid advancement and development in those fields
  • Topics in the humanities often tend not to need to be as current. (Ormonroyd, 2004)



Internet


How to find out who is behind your internet source.
  • Use Quarkbase to find out the important information about a web source: who owns the domain, how long it has been operating, how many others have used it or referenced it, and whether or not the site is what it says it is.
  • Find an internet source you like? Find out what links to it by doing a search that looks like this: link: http://(the URL of the site you like). What Google will return is a list of pages that link to the site you liked in the first place. Here is an example of what it looks like.

Analyzing for Content

  • Who is the intended audience?
  • Look at the reasoning behind the source: "Are the ideas and arguments advanced more or less in line with other works you have read on the same topic? The more radically an author departs from the views of others in the same field, the more carefully and critically you should scrutinize his or her ideas." (Ormonroyd, 2004)
  • Can you distinguish if you are reading fact, opinion, or some type of rhetoric for a hidden agenda? The author background and publisher might be able to tell you more about this as well.


Reflection Point

Are my sources usable and adequate?
You should ask:
1. Have I found an acceptable number and variety of sources (books, reference materials, periodicals)?
2. Is each source reliable?
3. Have I found a balance of points of view?