Back to Research Help Step 4--Evaluating What You Find As you are gathering information for your paper, you will want to carefully evaluate what you find. This is true for all types of materials. Some questions you should ask yourself when you are evaluating a source are: What are the author's credentials? When was it published? Is there a newer or revised edition? Who published it? Are they well-known, reputable? For journals--is this a scholarly journal or a popular magazine? If you need help determining what type of journal you are looking at click here Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals (Cornell University site) or go to the Reference Desk and check Magazines for Libraries by Katz. Scholarly journals usually contain footnotes or references, popular magazines don't. Now look carefully at the text and ask yourself these questions: Who is the intended audience? Is the information too simple, too technical, too advanced or just right for your needs? Is the information fact, opinion or propaganda? Is the information well-researched or unsupported by evidence? Is the point of view objective and impartial? Does the work verify other information you have gathered or does it add new information? Internet Sources Two basic kinds of resources on the internet are subscription databases and web pages . Subscription databases generally contain full text periodical and newspaper articles that can also be found in print. Evaluate them the same way you'd evaluate the printed source. Web pages can be posted by educational institutions, the government, organizations, businesses or individual people. It is helpful to know who has posted the web page when you are evaluating the material found there. A quick look at the three-letter extension on the web address will give you some important clues. .edu - educational institutions .gov - government offices .com - commercial businesses .mil - military .org - organizations, usually non-profit .net - network access providers Some basic criteria used for evaluating web pages are: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. Click here to see more detailed information about evaluating web sites: Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites (Cornell University site). Go to Step 5

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