FOUN 098 62 Ice Cream Engineering: Evaluating Sources

Evaluating sources allows you to select and vet relevant information that will inform your research, provide evidence for your arguments, and enter you into the scholarly conversation about your topic.  Evaluating sources can happen in phases: when you first find a source (quick evaluation), and when you review your collected sources as you narrow down to which ones you will use.

FULL EVALUATION
Purpose and intended audience:

• Why was this source created?  
• What is the author’s intent for the source (inform, persuade, other)? 
• Who is the intended audience (scholars/experts, general population, other)?

Objectivity or bias: 

• Does the source contain fact, opinion, propaganda, or bias?
• Is the information presented in the source objective (unbiased) or subjective (biased)?
• Does the information have a political, religious, economic, or social agenda?
• This may require finding more information on the author, publisher, and funding sources.

Authority and credibility: Credibility Video

• Who is the author?
• What are the qualifications of the author? 
• How was the source published?
• Who is the publisher? Is the publisher creditable?

Accuracy and reliability: 

• Is the information in the source well researched?  
• Did the author cite their sources of information?  
• Who and what did they cite?

Currency and timeliness: 

• When was the information created and/or published? 
• Is current information required for your topic?

Mike Caulfield created the SIFT method to help analyze information, especially news or other online media, in 4 steps. It involves going beyond the work and searching for additional information. 

• Stop
  • Stop before you read or share. 
  • Do you know this website or source of information? What is the reputation of the claim and the site? 
• Investigate the Source
  • Where is this work from? Who is the publisher? Is there a person or organization funding/publishing that might have overt bias? 
• Find Better Coverage 
  • If there is a claim you are trying to verify, find the best source you can on the topic or scan multiple sources on the topic. What is the general consensus? Are their more trusted sources? More in-depth sources? 
• Trace Claims, Quotes and Media to the Original Context
  • Follow the links to the originals by clicking on links or opening the original reporting source in a bibliography. What was the original context? Was it fairly represented in the source? 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Source: Vanderbilt Libraries 

This video is licensed with the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial.