How to Evaluate Sources

[Drmatic music] A long time ago, in a library not so far, far away… EVALUATING SOURCES Our Stanford Nerd Squirrel wants to become a critical thinker by learning how to evaluate scholarly, popular, and internet sources and picking the best one. This video will show you how to evaluate sources by looking at the author, the audience, the review process, the currency, and the perspective. Please see our other videos on how to search databases and the catalog.

Stanford's Nerd Squirrel found a  lot of sources by looking through books, magazines, newspapers, journal articles, and websites  for material to support its arguments for a research paper. Nerd Squirrel has even been to the Stanford University archives to find primary source materials. But what materials are acceptable for a research paper?

How does the Nerd Squirrel decide? It's not easy, but Nerd Squirrel is up to the job. Nerd Squirrel can detect which sources are the best by following these steps.

Step 1. Who created the source? Is the author credible?

An expert in the field? [Music] Is there a list of references or bibliography? Step 2.

Who is the author speaking to? The general public? Experts in the field?

Special interest groups? Step 3. Has the source been reviewed by  scholars in the field for accuracy and credibility?

Databases let you limit your search results  to scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. Step 4. How recent is the source and does it matter?

Sometimes older is better. Step 5. What is the purpose of the source?

Is it trying to educate? Provide factual information? Influence?

Sell something? You can still use the source as long as you acknowledge its bias or perspective. Step 6.

Let's look at domains. Some domain names are considered more credible than others. "Dot-edus" are educational sites and they are usually trustworthy.

Sometimes, though, people can post information that universities are not aware of or do not condone. For example, this article on gun control is on the Duke University's people page. And it asks you to join the NRA at the bottom.

The tilde in the address bar can be a giveaway that this is a personal website and may not be sanctioned by the educational institution in the URL. "Dot-gov" sites are created by government  agencies and are also generally trustworthy. You have to be more careful about "dot-com" sites.

Some are trustworthy. Other dot-com sites are trying to sell you something. While "dot-org" sites are created  by organizations, some are trustworthy and some are not.

Always independently research the organization. Don't rely on the website's About page. Other ways to learn about the website are to check the Whois record to find out who sponsored the page.

Dig into the policies of the organization and read news articles or reports about the organization. To highlight the differences in sources let's  look at this example. Nerd Squirrel searched for Martin Luther King historical examination in Searchworks and found many scholarly books.

This Stanford. edu site is an example of a reputable one. Many academic articles that come from databases are online, so they may appear on a dot-com website.

Next Nerd Squirrel searched the ProQuest database for Martin Luther King historical examination. Just like the Searchworks result, this academic database is also a reputable site. For its next test, Nerd Squirrel searched for Martin Luther King historical examination, this time using Google Scholar.

As expected these results look good and are from reputable sites. Just because it is the Internet, does not mean it's factual. For its final test, Nerd Squirrel did the same search, but this time just Googled it.

The first Google result is from a dot-org domain that even has Martin Luther King in the URL. That was easy. It looks professionally  designed, it has a civil rights library link, and even a pop quiz for students.

This is a perfect time for Nerd Squirrel to review its checklist. Who created it? Who is the author speaking to?

Has the source been reviewed? How recent is it? What is the purpose?

What is the domain? Remember to search the organization independently. The first step on the checklist was to identify the author. 

This website does that on the bottom of the page. The author is Stormfront and the link might  tell you more about who put the site together. Oh my!

Even though this is not a reputable site, you might want to use it in your paper anyway. It depends on the point you want to make. But it's important to acknowledge the author's perspective.

Nerd Squirrel might have thought  that finding reputable sources online was easy. But now it's learned the importance of evaluating each source critically. Nerd Squirrel has finished evaluating its sources.

That's was tough. But that's what it takes to be a real scholar at Stanford.