"Surface Level" Criteria -- Items you can evaluate simply based on the article citation and abstract. No other resource is required.
- Title
- Does it sound relevant to your needs?
- Publication Date
- Focus of Article
- Look at the Subjects or Keywords listed for that article, and read the Abstract to gain a quick sense of the subject of the article.
- Topic: What's the main focus? Does it directly relate to your topic, or is it peripheral? Does it have a narrower or wider focus than your topic?
- Geographic: Does the study pertain to the same geography you had in mind?
- Demographic: How about the target population of the article, or the study participants?
- Historic: Do the authors focus on a current issue, or are they reviewing historical data/information?
"Larger Context" Criteria -- Items that require using outside resources to investigate and resolve
- Publication Source
- Where was the article published? (What website, journal, newspaper, etc.)
- Does the publication make sense considering the topic of your research?
- How's the publication's reputation and quality? See resources below.
- RESOURCES
- Note on searching the three websites below: the search engines are very particular. Pay attention to how you're typing in the journal's title.
- Change between using "&" or "and" within a title
- Eliminate or add introductory articles ("The Journal of..." vs. "Journal of...")
- Type in part of the title and let the search engine populate the rest
- Add quotation marks around the entire title