Education: postgraduate studies guide: Evaluating Resources

Once you have found information that matches the topic and requirements of your research, you should analyze or evaluate these information sources. Evaluating information encourages you to think critically about the reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, point of view or bias of information sources.

Just because a book, article, or website matches your search criteria and thus seems, at face value, to be relevant to your research, does not mean that it is necessarily a reliable source of information.

It is important to remember that sources of information comprising the Library's print and electronic collections have already been evaluated for inclusion among its resources. However, this does not necessarily mean that these sources are relevant to your research

This does not necessarily apply to sources of information on the Web for the general public. Many of us with Internet/Web accounts are potential publishers of websites; most of this content is published without editorial review. Think about it. Many resources are available to help with evaluating web pages.

What criteria should you use to judge information sources?

Initially, look at the author, title, publisher, and date of publication. This information can be found in the bibliographic citation and can be determined even before you have the physical item in hand.

Next, look at the content, e.g. intended audience, the objectiveness of the writing, coverage, writing style, and, if available, evaluative reviews.

The following questions should be asked:

Who is the author (may be an individual or organization) and/or publisher?

• What are the credentials and affiliation or sponsorship of any named individuals or organizations?
• How objective, reliable, and authoritative are they?
• Have they written other articles or books?
• Is the author(s) listed with contact information (street address, e-mail)?
• Has the publisher published other works?
• Do they specialize in publishing certain topics or fields?
• Is the publisher scholarly (university press, scholarly associations)? Commercial? Government agency? Self (“vanity”) press?

What can be said about the content, context, style, structure, completeness and accuracy of the information provided by the source?

• Are any conclusions offered? If so, based on what evidence and supported by what primary and secondary documentation?
• What is implied by the content?
• Are diverse perspectives represented?
• Is the content relevant to your information needs?

When was the information published?

• The publication date is generally located on the title page or on the reverse side of the title page (copyright date).
• Does the source in its original form provide the information or has it been revised to reflect changes in knowledge?
• Is this information timely and is it updated regularly?

Where else can the information provided by the source be found?

• Is this information authentic?
• Is this information unique or has it been copied?

Why was the information provided by the source published?

• What are the perspectives, opinions, assumptions and biases of whoever is responsible for this information?
• Who is the intended audience?

• Is the source accurate?
• Is the information arranged logically, is the content well organized, and are arguments supported by evidence?
• Are references cited? Can the information provided be verified?
• Was the document edited, and was it peer-reviewed? Are there no spelling errors or grammatical errors? Are there no signs of a lack of quality control?

• Is the source you are using a scholarly or well-known publication with the publisher being a reputable one in this discipline?
• Is the author a specialist or a reputable individual in this field of study? 
• Do other authors quote or cite information from this author's works?

• The importance of the information for your needs.
• Consider your audience and compare with a variety of sources

• The timeliness (i.e. publication date, revision history) of the information.
• Broken links or old dates indicate a source has not been updated recently

Analysis of topic 

• Identify keywords/concepts/terms 
• Find synonyms for key terms or concepts 
• Select relevant databases and resources  
• Combine search terms with Boolean operators 
• Run searches on the selected databases
• Review and refine search results 

Find results using Boolean operators  

Improve your search results :

Fake news can be a combination of disinformation and misinformation.

• Disinformation is the deliberate, often planned, attempts to confuse or manipulate people through delivering dishonest information to them.
• Misinformation is misleading information created or distributed without manipulative or malicious intent.

Fake news is therefore stories that are specially designed to mislead or deliberately misinform people.

Why is it so dangerous?

The first job of fake news is to catch your attention and appeal to your emotions. We often place information into an emotional frame of reference that combines facts with feelings. This can be dangerous because just being exposed to a fake news headline can increase our belief in that headline, so scrolling through social media feeds full of emotionally charged content has the power to change the way we see the world and how we make decisions.

Tips and tools: How can you tell the difference?

•  Find out about the source

• Look at the author

• Check for references and links

• Google reverse image search

•  Is the story being shared?

References 

Berger, G. (2018). Journalism, ‘fake news’ & disinformation. In C. Ireton & J. Posetti (Eds.), Handbook for journalism education and training:7-13. France: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. https://en.unesco.org

Hewitt, B. (2017). How to spot fake news – an expert’s guide for young people. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com