Evaluating sources of information

It is highly likely that you will use a wide range of web-based resources during your studies and whilst completing assignments.  These resources might be online books (eBooks), journals and journal articles, professional websites with aspects of quality and credibility of authorship, or just websites you've found whilst using a search engine such as Google or Google Scholar.

The wealth of information available on the internet is great but it comes with it's own issues. You need to understand how to practice your critical thinking skills  to enable you to use caution  when judging the authenticity and quality of content you find there.   

Take a look at the Downloadable Resources section on this guide to find a range of tools that help you keep an open and questioning mind when critically evaluating web-based content.

In particular think about:

• Authority.  Who is the author responsible for the content and what do you know about them (or what can you find out about them)?
• What type of website is the content on?  Is it government (.gov), academic (.ac or .ed), a professional body or a commercial site?
• Quality.  Is there any evidence of a quality control process such as peer review?  Does it feel 'academic' with references, good evidence and citations? 
• Is it a personal site or is it trying to sell something?  Can you sense bias or personal opinion?
• Currency.  Can you see when the information was published or updated? This isn't always easy when looking at web pages so you may need to check the 'facts' from other websites.

Take a look at the next page on this guide which discusses 'Lateral Reading', a concept developed and used by web fact-checkers and a technique worth using when reviewing web-based content.