Evaluating Your Sources
You may encounter many types of information in your research, including newspaper articles, investigative journalism, magazines, trade publications (news for a specific field), videos, and online websites.
It is important to carefully evaluate all sources you encounter, especially those you find outside the library databases or sources that are not peer-reviewed.
How can you tell if you're looking at a quality source?
- Consult the Scholarly VS Popular infographic for reminders about the differences in these sources
- Be especially mindful of where a source is coming from & consider its credibility as well as potential biases
- Use the CRAAP Test to evaluate online materials for trustworthiness
- Check the Ad Fontes Media Media Bias Chart for information about major news organizations
- Review this article on How to Detect Bias in the Media help determine political skew, if it is still unclear to you
