Evaluating Sources

These are a few important points to consider when evaluating the resources you have found during the research process.

1. Quantity -- have you gathered enough resources to support the thesis of your paper from a variety of perspectives?

2. Diversity -- effective library research should locate a variety of different types of materials, both primary sources-original documents, letters, diaries, speeches, newspaper articles, and secondary sources -- retrospective materials with scholarly analysis of a subject such as, books, articles, reviews, editorials, scientific studies.

3. Date of Publication -- When was your source published? Depending on your topic, you will probably want to use materials from different time periods.

4. Quality and Reliability -- one of the most difficult tasks in conducting research is determining the quality and reliability of your sources. This can be especially true when a source is found through the Internet. Here are some factors to think about when assessing the quality and reliability of a publication:

What is the tone?
Who is the intended audience?
What is the purpose of the publication?
What assumptions does the author make?
What are the bases of the author's conclusions?
Does the author agree or disagree with other authors on the subject?
Does the content agree with what you know or have learned about the issue?
To help determine this, it might also help to look over the source's documentation and read some reviews of the source.

5. Additional Resources

Does the source provide leads to other potentially useful materials? Does the documentation included in the source (footnotes and bibliography) substantiates the author's research?

Do you know the difference between popular magazines vs. scholarly journals?