Evaluating Sources

When conducting research ask yourself the following:

1. Authority/Reliability: Is this a peer-reviewed publication in a scholarly or practitioner journal?
2. Currency: Is this study over 15 years old? If it seems to be a foundational study, maybe that’s okay, but otherwise, are there more current studies that are taking up the same ideas in contemporary contexts?
3. Quality/Accuracy: Is it based on well-documented materials? Do they reference other research and do they include solid evidence to back up their conclusions?
4. Audience: Is the source trying to persuade you or is it an advertising source? 
5. Empirical: Is it a research study that uses data to make conclusions? To check for this, search the document for explanation of how they collected and analyzed data. References to these methods is often a tell-tale sign that this was empirical work.