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Evaluating Resources
Are your resources appropriate for your research paper? Consider:
Authority:
- Who is the author? Is this clearly stated?
- What are the credentials of the author/organization?
- On the web, consider the domain: addresses that end in .com
are from commercial sites like businesses, .gov addresses are
from
government agencies, .edu are from educational institutions.
Web addresses with a tilde (~) often indicate a personal web
page.
Accuracy:
- How accurate is the information listed?
- Is the information in agreement with information found in
another source? You should be able to find corroborative evidence
in
other sources.
Objectivity:
- Is the informational content free from advertising or opinion?
- Are advertisements/editorials clearly labeled as such?
Currency:
- Does the source clearly indicate when it was published?
- If the information is from a website, look for an indication
of when the page was last updated. Good websites should
be updated regularly.
Coverage:
- Can you determine if the information is complete? For example,
is the source an excerpt from a larger work or abridged
in any way?
For additional web site evaluation tips, see Thinking
Critically about Web 2.0 and Beyond by Esther Grassian of the UCLA
Libraries.
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