Evaluating Information
Contents
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Part 1
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WHO HAS WRITTEN THE INFORMATION?
WHO HAS PUBLISHED THE INFORMATION?
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Part 2
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WHEN WAS THE INFORMATION PUBLISHED?
WHO WAS THE INFORMATION WRITTEN FOR?
WHY WAS THE INFORMATION PUBLISHED?
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When you're working on a research assignment it can be hard
to find the material you need. But once you have found some
information, how do you know if it's reliable? Just because
it's published in a book, journal or the Internet does not
automatically mean it will be reliable or useful.
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Maybe you've found yourself swamped with too much information
- how can you effectively judge which sources will be the
best for your purposes?
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 WHO
HAS WRITTEN THE INFORMATION?
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Authority
For information to be reliable, someone who has expert
knowledge in the subject must write it. This is called
authority.
To assess the writer's authority in their subject is
very important especially when looking at information
on the Internet. Anyone can place information on the
Internet so you need to make sure that the writer has
the appropriate qualifications and/or expert knowledge.
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Source of author information
Books
For books the author's name, their qualifications and background
information may be found
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On the front and back of the book.
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On the title page and the introduction.
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Journals
For articles in journals the author's name can be found
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Near the title or at the end of the article.
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Sometimes the qualifications of the author and brief background
details are also included.
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Internet
For Internet documents the author's name, qualifications and
other information may be found:
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At the top or bottom of the page
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Sometimes the author is not a single person. Companies or
organisations can publish information on their sites for which
no individual author is stated (the Learning Centre site is
an example.
Locating the author of an Internet document can be hard sometimes.
If no author has been identified, it might be a good idea
not to use that source!
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WHO HAS PUBLISHED THE INFORMATION?
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Locating the publisher of a source is an important
step in evaluating information.
Once you know the publisher, you can think about why
the information has been published.
For example, the publication
might be the result of a research project.
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Bias
However, some organizations publish information that supports
their viewpoint and doesn't show both sides of an issue.
If you use information that does have a bias like this, you
need to take this into account and perhaps balance it with
information from another point of view.
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Source of Publisher information
Books
You can usually find a book's publisher:
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On the bottom or the back of the title page.
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Journals
A journal's publisher can be found:
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On the cover …or on the editor's page.
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Internet
For the Internet, it's the owner of the web site the information
is published on.This information can be found on the home
page of the web site.
Unfortunately, for Internet documents, knowing the name of
the organization or person who owns the web site mightn't
be very useful. You'll need to find out what type of organization
it is so that you can work out whether the information may
be biased.
To find out the type of organization that owns a web site,
look at the web address. A code in the address will
tell you the type of organization that owns the web site.
Some codes are
com= commercial
gov = government
mil = military
net = network
org = non-profit
Codes can vary from country to country but these can be used
as a guide.
Generally, a book or journal published by a university press
and web sites with edu and gov are likely to
be reliable sources of information.
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