Library:Module 5 Evaluation of Sources

5.2 Evaluation of Information Sources

Why is it important to evaluate your sources?

Publishing and distributing information can be very easy - especially on the Internet. Many online tools like wikis, blogs and other social media are free and getting published is as easy as typing up some content and hitting a "create" button. This means that anyone with an internet connection will be able to find a forum to publish his or her ideas. Many people do so without being experts on the topic - or using editors, fact-checkers or other forms of quality control. This is further complicated by the fact that many of these publishing channels come with slick graphics and professional quality site-design. This means that you will have to look beneath the surface to judge the quality of your sources.

Your assignments will often require that you use scholarly sources, written by experts for an academic audience. After all, you can't make reasoned arguments if your sources aren't credible.

The best way to ensure that you have a suitable source is to check it out yourself.

What to evaluate?

You will need to evaluate each resource you use for research, whether it is an online or print journal article, a website, a book, a newspaper article, or other source that you want to cite. Use the questions in this tutorial as a framework to assess how appropriate they will be for your research. Keep in mind that many publications have a particular bias or agenda, which may not be obvious at first glance.

Don't expect to be able to answer every question, all the time, for all information resources you look at.
Rather, try to use the questions as a tool to help you look at sources critically.

Authority

It seems obvious to state that no one is an expert at everything but it's easy to overlook an author's credentials - especially when reading something online. Some authors:

are experts sharing the results of their research with other scholars.
are hired to produce articles for the general public.
are passionate amateurs.
are experts writing for a general audience, e.g., a scientist writing a children's book or an economist writing a summary for a politician.
publish fabricated or unproven research for a variety of reasons.

Questions to Ask

Is there an author of the work? If so, is the author clearly identified?
Are the author's credentials for writing on this topic stated? For instance, journal articles often list the university or organization the authors are affiliated with.
If the author is affiliated with an organization, could this organization have a bias?
Have you seen the author's name cited in other sources or bibliographies? Repeated citations by others and a substantial body of work by the author can indicate expertise.
Does the source represent a group, organization, institution, corporation or government body? Is the organization a recognized authority on the topic? e.g., Metro Vancouver is an authority on regional land use, not search engine optimization.
For online sources, is there a way to contact the author and/or organization?

If you cannot find an author or an organization connected to a source, be very suspicious. If no one wants to stand behind the work, why should you believe what is written there? Even if there is a named author - make sure that the organization and/or author are who they say they are.

The website alexa.com lets you check ownership of a website and find out what other sites link to it.
You can search for an author in a database like Web of Science or Google Scholar to see if he or she has published other work on the subject and if that work has been cited by other authorities.
- Reminder: even if an author is an expert in one field, she or he may not have expertise in the field you are researching.

Accuracy

It's easy to assume that because a work has been published that it's also been checked for accuracy but that is not always the case.

In the scholarly publication process there are a number of steps journal articles go through called peer-review:

The journal editor typically assigns it to two or more independent referees, who have similar expertise to the author.
The referees review the article and write reports that recommend acceptance, acceptance with minor or major changes, or rejection.
Acceptance rates vary depending on the prestige of the journal, and the entire process can take up to a year.

When you search the web, you will usually find a combination of online scholarly journal articles (many provided to you by UBC Library) and other websites.

While individual websites may be written by experts and have some sort of editing process in place, there is no overall system for vetting the web.
This lack of review and revision process means that not all Web pages are reliable or valuable.
Documents can easily be copied and falsified, or copied with omissions and errors - intentional or accidental.

Note: as with other graphic elements on a website, commonly available software makes it easy to present data and statistics in a professional-looking graph, table or chart - whether the underlying data are reliable or not.

Data presented in a source may be original work by the author, collected by an official statistical agency, copied from somewhere else or even fabricated - so make sure to look at it as critically as any other element in the source.
For more information on good and bad graphs, see Gallery of Data Visualization.

Questions to Ask

Is the source part of an edited or peer-reviewed publication?
Can factual information be verified through references to other credible sources?
Based on what you already know about the subject, or have checked from other sources, does this information seem credible?
Is it clear who has the responsibility for the accuracy of the information presented? Is it on a site like Wikipedia which can be edited by anyone?
If data are presented in graphs or charts, is the source of the data clear? Does the data source itself seem credible?

Mini-Activity Look at the NIPCC website and ask yourself if the information seems credible and accurate.

Scope

It's important to make sure that the scope of your source matches the scope of your research. To do this you'll need to look at the purpose, intended audience and coverage of your source material.

Questions to Ask

Purpose

Why was the source created - to educate? sell a product? advocate a viewpoint?
Does the source update other works, support other works you've read, or add new information?
What is the balance between opinion and verifiable facts?

Intended Audience

Is the publication aimed at a general or a specialized audience?
Is the source too elementary, too technical, too advanced, or just right for your research needs?

Focus/Coverage of the Subject

Does the source cover the topic comprehensively, or does it only cover one aspect? Be wary if the author ignores other viewpoints or makes claims which aren't supported by data.
- For books, a table of contents and index can be helpful in assessing the coverage of the work.
For online sources, is the site complete or still under construction? Does the source seem stable, or is it likely to change much between the time you read it and the time your research is finished?
For online sources, if there is a print equivalent to the website, is there clear indication of whether the entire work or only a portion is available online?
- If it is a portion of the work have the quotes been taken out of context or otherwise misrepresented?

Mini Activity Check out this article in Wikipedia. Ignoring the warning at the top of the article's page: What elements in the article make it look scholarly? What missing element might have revealed this hoax sooner?

For a brief recap of the points covered above watch this video: