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Where do we look to answer these questions and find out if a source is appropriate
and reliable? Here are a few tips.
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Relevance |
The most important question to ask is: Will this source help me write a better
paper? If the answer is No, then you don't need to go any further because the
ultimate goal is that you have the best possible paper. |
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Authority & Reliability |
Most good sources will offer you information about the author's expertise
in the field or inform you that the author is a freelance or staff writer. If
there is no author information, search the internet or databases and try to find
out the author's credentials. You can also take into account the authority of the
publisher if no author is listed.
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Accuracy & Validity |
Can you verify the facts presented with other sources? Do they tell you where they
got their statistics and if so, can you find those same statistics from that source?
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Objectivity |
All sources don't have to be objective; just be sure that if the author has a
bias towards a particular point of view that you recognize it. This way, if you
are trying to present both sides of an issue, you can find another opinion or source
to balance out your paper. |
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Currency |
Currency doesn't always matter. Some topics benefit from a wide range of time periods,
like historical research and literary criticism. Other topics depend upon the
currency of the sources in order to be relevant, like current events and law.
Finally, some disciplines require currency as a matter of course, like the health sciences. |
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Bibliography |
If there is a bibliography, you will not only be able to look at the author's sources
and verify her information, but you are also probably looking at more scholarly
work because the author did some research on the topic (notice we say
probably, we make no guarantees!).
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Purpose & Audience |
These two are linked together because often the purpose of a work is decided by
the audience for whom it is written. Popular work is written to inform or entertain
anyone who might be interested, while scholarly work seeks to further a field of
study and is written for others in the field. In short, the scholarly guys tend to
use more jargon without explaining it. |
