Analyzing Sources

Questions for evaluation:

• When was this published? 
• Has it been recently updated? 
• Does my subject require up-to-date sources, or will older materials also work?

Where to look:

• For books, look in the front of the book on the back of the title page - you should see some sort of copyright indicator with the year the book was published
• For webpages, look at the very top or bottom of the page. Some will have a publish date and an update date, some will just have a last updated date, some will have nothing at all.
• Journal articles will have the date of publication in their citation information. This is usually located next to the title of the journal, with the volume number
• If you can't find a date anywhere in the item, check the references or notes section for the most recently published reference - this isn't always accurate, but can give you a general timeframe for the earliest it could have been published

Questions for evaluation:

• How does this relate to my topic? 
• Is the writing level appropriate for what I need (not too simple or too technical)? 
  • Would I understand this information if I wasn't already learning about it?
• What audience was this source intended for?
• Is there a better source I could use?

Where to look:

• You can usually determine the answer to these questions by reading the abstract or introduction of an item. The abstract/introduction sets the tone for the rest of the work
• Reading the whole abstract or introduction also gives you a better idea of what the item is about than a basic search result
• Look at the full list of keywords and subject terms, as well as the table of contents (when available)

Questions for evaluation:

• Who wrote this? 
• What are the author’s credentials and affiliations?
• Is the author qualified to write on this topic?
• Was there a sponsor? Does the content align with the sponsor's viewpoint?
• How was this published? Is it on a reputable site or peer-reviewed journal? Was it posted on a blog or independently published?
• Does the URL reveal something about the source? Is it a .com, .edu, .gov, .org, or .net?

Where to look:

• Many authors will list credentials after their name, like what university or organization they work for and what degrees they hold (PhD, MA, etc)
• Most peer-reviewed research projects are required to disclose if a company or federal grant provided funds to the project, either at the beginning or the end
• Try to find other sources written by the same person. You can use orcid.org to search for the author - professional researchers usually have a profile with their institutional affiliations, educational history, and everything they've published
• Check the "About" section of websites and journals to learn more about them

Questions for evaluation:

• Where did the author get their information?
• Is the information supported by evidence?
• Can I verify the information using another source?
• Has this been peer-reviewed to check for inaccuracies and bias?
• Are there any spelling, grammatical, or typographical errors? 
• Do their references come from reputable sources?
• If there are links in the article, do they work?

Where to look:

• Examine the number of in-text citations as well as the reference list at the end of the work
• Check the numbers - if the work mentions statistics or data (other than what was collected by the author) and doesn't cite it, search for that data yourself and see what comes up
• Skim the text for any glaring errors or outlandish claims

Questions for evaluation:

• Why was this created? Did the author write this to inform or teach me something? Or were they trying to persuade me to agree with them, or sell me a product?
• Do the authors or sponsors make their purposes clear? 
• Does the author seem objective and impartial?
• Are there any biases at play here?

Where to look:

• If a work mentions a specific brand name when a generic item could be used instead, it could be an indicator that the work is meant to sell that product, rather than convey information. For example, an article on whether eating "Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup" (and not chicken noodle soup in general) makes a cold go away faster might just be an ad for Campbell's. 
• Look at the conclusion or the end of the work. Something written to persuade will likely have emotional language or a call to action that tells you to do something or think a certain way. An informational work might look at future research questions, but won't imply that you should be doing something.

Stop and reflect

This step reminds us to pause whenever we find ourselves caught up in an article or overwhelmed with source-checking tasks. When you first open an article or news story, think about where the information is coming from before you dive into it (especially if the tile is particularly clickbait-y). Do you know the website? What's their reputation like?

Secondly, don't get overwhelmed with fact-checking every piece of information you read. While it is important to know where your information is coming from, reputable news sources like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times can usually be trusted at face value and don't need to be fact-checked (see our page on newspapers for more information on reliable news outlets!). 

Investigate the source

This step has us looking at who wrote the source, and where it was published. The idea is that you want to know the goal of the source before you read it. An article about meat consumption in America written by the USDA may have very different goals than an article about meat consumption written by PETA. That doesn't mean one article is necessarily better or more facutal than the other, but knowing the angle the author is coming from can help you decide whether the article is significant, trustworthy, or worth reading.

Find better coverage

This step is about finding other sources on the same topic. If you see a particularly outlandish or surprising claim, do a general search for the same information. For example, if you see an article claiming that having a pet cat is now illegal, you can search the web for "pet cat illegal" and see if any other articles pop up with the same claim, or if something entirely different happened and the original author was dramatizing. This step isn't so much about getting to the source of a claim - moreso about determining expert consesus on the topic. If 9/10 articles say that having a pet tiger is illegal, and the tenth article says that having any pet cat is illegal, you can probably surmise that the tenth article is exaggerating. 

Trace claims back to the original context

Here is where you will investigate the original sources of information. Much of media has been stripped of its original context. It is extremely easy for people to omit important details or clip parts of a video to make it appear as if someone said or did something completely different. 

For example, say you see a video circulating of a popular celebrity getting angry for no reason at an innocent fan that just wants to take a picture with them. From that video, you might think that the celebrity is rude and aggressive in general. However, in looking for the original source of the video, you find that the clip you saw cut out the beginning where the fan had been walking behind and insulting the celebrity for a while beforehand. That missing context makes all the difference in interpreting the video.