Credible Source: Five tips to determine if your source is credible

hi there my name is chelsea seaburn welcome to the smart student this channel is all about helping online college students in their online college programs today i'm going to be talking about what it means to be a credible source why it matters and then i've created this checklist that outlines those five different things you should look for and i'm gonna walk you through each one but with no further ado go ahead and give this video a big thumbs up and let's get started so what is a credible source well a credible source is a trustworthy

source you see in our day and age you can find just about anything online which is wonderful for a lot of reasons however since you can find anything online what this means is that just about anybody can post anything online meaning that what you read online may not always be true and it might be manipulated in some way so when you're researching for either academic or professional purposes you want to make sure the sources that you're using are credible meaning that they are unbiased and can be backed up by real facts it's tempting as it

may be to use a source when it aligns with your research question or thesis statement perfectly you always want to remain somewhat skeptical until you verify the source's credibility now to make this easy there are five things in particular that you want to look for you want to check currency relevance authority accuracy and purpose this is known as what is called the crap test no i did not come up with this on my own it was created years ago and it's used across the globe what i have done for you though is created this checklist

which demonstrates each of these five things to look for this checklist can be found down in the description below i suggest downloading it saving on your computer so you can reference it later but the way the crop test works is that it's a list of qualifying questions to determine whether your source is credible or crap now your source does not have to favor all of these questions necessarily but it should favor more than not otherwise it's crap alrighty but let's go ahead and go through each one so that way i can explain them more in

detail by the way if you're finding value in this video don't forget to give it a big thumbs up comment subscribe it's your interaction with this channel that allows me to keep doing what i'm doing so thank you so much for being here so the first thing you want to look for is currency and this is simply the timeliness of the information when you're checking for this you want to look to see when the source was last published so unless you're researching something that is specifically supposed to analyze the past a rule of thumb is

that a good source is one that was published within the last 10 years this is especially important when you're researching experiments because when you research an older experiment there's a good chance that those results may have been disproved by more recent studies for example let's say you're writing a paper about our solar system depending on what source you're looking at and when it was published pluto may or may not be considered a planet i think we're still saying it's not a planet so if you look here i did a quick google search and this article

is talking about arguments for and against demoting pluto in other words in february 1998 pluto was not yet demoted it was still a planet if you look over at this article however it says pluto is still not an official planet in our solar system this article that was written on february 2nd 2021 meaning that it's the most current so pluto right now is not a planet as you can see the timeliness of the information really does matter to determine whether or not a source is current here are a few qualifying questions you can ask when

was the information posted or published is the information current or out of date in regards to your topic are the links on this website functional faulty links are a classic sign of an outdated article or website so it's something you want to be aware of alright cool so moving on to the next one which is relevancy and relevancy is simply the importance of the information for your needs in other words you want to make sure that you're reading a source that's providing you with information that is compatible applicable and related to your topic i'm sure

we can all relate to finding the perfect article that fits your topic but it's just off just a little bit this is where you might be tempted to use that source but maybe omit a few details never do this you would be including false information in your papers which you don't want a chance losing points for for instance let's say you're writing a research paper about the effects that dieting has on a woman's mental health your thesis statement is that dieting leads to lasting mental health complications like depression and eating disorders great you find this

wonderfully written article that fits that thesis statement exactly and you want to use it however the case study was done on adolescent girls not women that article would not be relevant to your topic close but go fish so when you're checking to make sure that an article is relevant here are a few qualifying questions you can ask yourself who is the intended audience does the information that's being presented relate to your topic is the information at an appropriate level for your topic meaning it's not too elementary nor too advanced for your needs have you looked

at a variety of other sources before selecting this one and does the information back up your intended research all of those questions combined will give you a good feel for how applicable the information and that source will be for you and your needs next you have authority which is the author's credibility to be writing about the topic in other words how qualified are they to be saying what they're saying to be presenting this information some of the most common things you can look for are the authors credentials or their affiliation you know are they writing

from an official government website or a school website or is it their own personal blog for example let's say you're writing a research paper on nutrition are you getting your information from someone's personal blog where much of their articles are based off personal experience and personal opinion or are you using an official established website such as a government website where their articles are going to be written by specialists who are qualified to talk about things like nutrition and the health benefits of different food varieties and so on and so forth some questions you can ask

yourself here is who is the author are there any credentials or affiliations listed for that author if yes what are those credentials and affiliations how is the author qualified to talk about this topic and does the url reveal anything about this source for instance some common credible domains will use things like dot edu for education.gov for government dot org for an organization things like common.net don't necessarily mean that the source is incredible those are just common domains that anyone can go create a domain or a website under so it's important to be aware of that

but moving on to the fourth thing which is checking for the accuracy of the information in other words is what they're saying actually correct can it be backed up by real facts as a rule of thumb when you're checking for accuracy you want to be aware of vague phrases for example if someone says recent studies show but there's no recent study to show what they're saying that's a huge red flag you know if they say many people believe you should ask yourself who are these many people that believe this my favorite is when a source

uses an authority figure statement to gain credibility this is when they'll stamp the good old faction doctor recommended somewhere in their article to try and sound legitimate so if you see something like that if you see something vague you always want to trail that down to find the sources that they're referring to that back up their claim some additional questions you can ask yourself here are where does this information come from is the information supported by real evidence has this information been reviewed by anyone else can i verify this same information in another source does

the language or tone seem biased and free of emotion are there any spelling or grammar errors all right we're almost there we're to the fifth element in the crap test which is purpose and purpose is simply why does this information exist here you want to be real careful about bias so let's say you're reading an article does it come from a medical company who's quasi trying to promote their product or is it written from a qualified organization like the world health organization webmd the mayo clinic where their purpose is mainly just to get facts out

to the general public now something to be aware of is that just because it's a qualified source doesn't mean that the information they're presenting won't be biased it's okay if it is it's just really important that you're aware of it if it is bias it's really important to know the difference between a biased a biased opinion that stated is a fact by the way it's completely fine to research topics from different viewpoints on purpose you just want to be aware that the information you're using might be a little skewed or manipulated to fit that source's

needs so some questions you can ask here again what is the purpose of this information does the author make their intentions or purpose clear is the information fact opinion propaganda does the viewpoint appear objective and impartial can you spot any biases either personal political ideological cultural the list goes on and on again you're just inquiring to see why the person wrote this information because that's going to help you determine how credible it is for you and your needs but in conclusion you should always be a little skeptical when doing research especially research that's done online

this is not about being difficult it's about being smart and again if you want to be super smart don't forget to download that checklist and save it to your computer so you can reference it whenever you want lastly if that checklist seem like a lot of information to cover and go through please know that it's just there to kind of guide you so you get a feel of the credibility of the source again if your source doesn't favor more than it does favor on that checklist there's a good chance that it's not a credible source

and you should move on to one that is but anyways friends if you're still here right now thank you so much for watching don't forget to come join the smart student facebook group i would love to have you there you can find that link down in the description below but as always if you've enjoyed this video don't forget to give it a big thumbs up share it with someone else who could use it and of course subscribe to this channel for more videos every week thank you