Evaluate Your Information
After locating information sources, it is necessary to evaluate the information for its usefulness and suitability for your purposes. The criteria listed below should be applied to traditional sources of information like books and periodicals as well as to Web-based sources of information.
As an information seeker you should examine each information source you are considering using. Ask yourself how that information source measures up according to the criteria below. Be especially cautious about information taken from the Web. Information you find in books and periodicals has gone through a review by editors and publishers in order to be published; it has gone through review by librarians and faculty who have limited funds and use them to purchase for your use the best materials available within the budget of the library. These filters don't necessarily exist on the web. Often, the information comes to you direct from the author-- so be cautious.
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING INFORMATION SOURCES
Criteria specific to World Wide Web sources is italicized and bold.
EXTERNAL CRITERIA-- information you can evaluate before even reading the content
- Author Information
- What are the author's credentials? Can you determine his/her educational background, experience, other publications? Is he/she qualified to write on this subject?
- Has this author been mentioned by your professor or in any of the other sources you have found during this research? Experts in a field tend to be quoted or cited fairly often.
- Is the author of this Web Page identified? When the author is identified it is usually at the top or bottom of the page. If the author is named does he/she meet any of the above criteria that you would look for in other authors? Is information provided so that you can contact the author to determine background?
- Publication Information
- Is this book published by a reputable publisher? Is it published by a university press which would be one indication that the information is scholarly?
- Is this book a new edition or a revision of an earlier edition? A new or revised edition would indicate that the author is keeping the information current and the publisher considers it worth republishing.
- Is this information found in a popular magazine or a scholarly journal? Scholarly journals are often peer-reviewed which means that scholars in the field have examined the articles prior to publication. Scholarly journals also contain documentation in the form of footnotes and/or bibliography so that others may consult the same works the author did to see if they come up with the same conclusions.
- Is the institution or organization identified which is giving this Web Page space? That institution or organization is its "publisher." Is it an educational institution, a government agency, an organization, a company? This identity can usually be determined by examining top or bottom of the page or analyzing the URL or by following links to a home page.
- Date Information
- When was this information published? In a book date information can often be found on the title page below the name of the publisher. Another possibility is to look for the copyright date on the back of the title page. Dates of periodicals are usually on the cover.
- Is the information current enough for your purposes? In the fields of science, medicine and social science, current information is essential. In the fields of the humanities older information still maintains validity and may have greater value.
- When was this Web Page written? When was it put on the web? Has it been revised to maintain its currency? Are any hypertext links which it contains still active? Lots of deadend links indicate that the author is not maintaining the page and it may be outdated.
INTERNAL CRITERIA-- information you must evaluate by reading and analyzing the content.
- Audience
- Who are the intended readers of this information? Is it written at my level of comprehension? Is it written for children and young adults in which case it is too elementary for use in a college research paper. Or is it written at an expert level and filled with specialized terms which only an advanced audience can understand?
- Can I tell who the Web author is trying to reach? As with other sources of information, the style of writing, use of technical terms and jargon, might indicate that it is written for the specialist.
- Purpose
- What is the purpose of the author in presenting this information? Is he/she trying to inform me, to persuade me, to sell me something?
- What is the purpose of the Web author? If the Web site is a corporate one, it might well be trying to sell me a product or service. If the Web site is an organization, is it trying to convince me to join or support the organization and its causes?
- Content
- Is the information provided factual or analytical? That is, does it strictly state facts or does it attempt to analyze and synthesize the facts?
- Is the information objective or subjective? That is, does the author state the facts in a straightforward manner or does the author attempt to persuade you by interjecting opinion? There may be times when you need objective information. Other times you will need subjective opinions. You should recognize each type of information.
- Is the information a primary or secondary source? A primary source is an eyewitness account in the field of history, a piece of literature in a literature course, a report of an experiment or study in science or social science. A secondary source is an analysis of a primary source.
- Is the information presented clearly, logically, grammatically?
- Does the information source include a table of contents, index, or other finding tool so that you can easily locate the information you need? If it is a Web source, is it easy to maneuver around the page, to the homepage, to the institutional page? Is it easy to find just the part of the page that pertains to your subject? Does the page contain useful links to other sources?
- If you need specific types of information -- maps, charts, illustrations, statistics-- are they included in the source? If it is a Web source, do the graphics add to your knowledge of the subject or do they just make for a colorful page which is slow to download?
- Does the information presented deal directly with your topic or just touch upon it peripherally? If it does not deal with the topic but only mentions it in passing, look for a better information source.
- Does the information agree with other sources you have come across in your research? Any information which seriously contradicts your other sources should be examined closely.
- Web sources should meet all of the content criteria that you expect of other information sources as listed above. Finally, ask yourself if this Web source adds significantly to your knowledge of the subject beyond what is available in a traditional published source? If it does add significantly to your knowledge of your topic and it meets the content criteria, use it. If it does not add significantly to your knowledge of your topic, do not waste your time on it.
For further discussion of evaluation of web resources try:
Continue
Raritan Valley Community College / Evelyn S. Field Library
