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Evaluating Sources

This Library Research Guide will provide you with information that you can use to critically evaluate sources including websites, articles and reports, books and ebooks, etc.

Credentials

The first element to investigate is the credentials of whoever created the information. We should investigate by asking questions like these:

  • What's their educational background? Do they have an advanced degree in the subject under discussion?
  • What's their occupation? Do they work in a field that qualifies them to talk about the subject?
  • Do they have any other experience that might make them a good source of information? For instance, an eyewitness to an earthquake doesn't have to be a seismologist to give good information about what it was like to experience that event.

We should investigate not only the individual author but also the publication or website publishing them:

  • What type of organization are they? University? Non-profit? Advocacy group? 
  • Why do they exist? What's their purpose? (See the Objectives section of this guide for more on that.)

Google can help us answer these questions. Plug in the author's name and publisher's information to see what comes up. University faculty are usually listed on the university's website. Unreliable sources often have critics who point out their lack of credibility (and we need to evaluate those critics as well!).

If the information we are investigating doesn't tell us who the author or creator is, that's a bad sign.

 

Know Your Sources!

What does Scholarly or Peer-Reviewed mean?

The highest level of trustworthiness for most academic subjects is found in scholarly sources, as opposed to popular sources. Scholarly articles are written by and for scholars, i.e. experts and researchers in a field. Popular sources are written for the general population. 

Scholarly usually, but not always, means peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed means that a panel of peers — other experts in the field — review an author's paper to decide if it is worth publishing. If they decide that the author has done good work and that the paper advances the knowledge of the field, they sign off on the paper. (Often they ask for revisions first.)

Drawbacks of Peer Review

Peer review has its drawbacks too: it's slow, it can be expensive, and reviewers are human and their judgment is subjective, and can vary widely from reviewer to reviewer. The system is imperfect, but that's because humans are imperfect. But the system usually works well and is the best we have at filtering good and bad information in academic scholarship. So if your professor wants you to find a peer-reviewed source, that's why.

So how do you know if a source is peer-reviewed? Check out the Scholarly vs Popular Sources FAQ page to learn more.

 

Test Yourself

Climate change is a topic that many people have a strong opinion about. Here are two sites talking about climate change. Take a look at them and consider the following questions:

Who is the author (individual or group)? Which author has the better credentials?

Site #1 This link opens in a new window

Site #2 This link opens in a new window