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Evaluating Information Sources

"How can I tell if this book or article is any good?"

"Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are." – George Orwell

Although Orwell's statement above may be extreme, it is a useful antidote to people's tendency to accept as fact anything that is published, whether in a book, magazine or on the Internet.

Every source of information--books, magazine articles, the Internet, broadcast news programs, talk radio shows, encyclopedias, and government publications--incorporates the perspective or bias of its authors. Instead of automatically accepting information at face value, you should consider the context and purpose of the sources you use and the intended audience for the information.

Context can reflect viewpoints characteristic of particular times, places, nations, cultures or interest groups.

Example: Thomas Jefferson was among the founders of modern democracy. However, he owned slaves and was unable to formulate a solution for eradicating slavery in the United States. How should we reconcile Jefferson's advanced views on personal liberty and government with the fact that he was a lifelong slave holder? There is no simple answer to this question, but any valid consideration should take into account the context of Jefferson's times.

The purpose of a book or other information source may be to inform, entertain, persuade, or otherwise promote certain view-points.

Example: In the 1980s, a group of prominent scientists wrote an article about "nuclear winter," suggesting that debris thrown into the Earth's atmosphere after a nuclear war might block sunlight and kill off much of the life on this planet. "Nuclear winter" is a theory--there has been no similar event in recorded history. What were some likely purposes of the authors in popularizing this theory?

Knowing the intended audience is also useful when judging an information source. Generally speaking, scientists and scholars intend their writings to be read by others in their field of study, including students, while professional journalists write books and articles that can be read quickly and understood by the general public, a wide audience with no common area of specialization.

Example: The AIDS epidemic has been covered extensively over the past decade by the broadcasting media, newspapers, and popular magazines. It has also been covered by scientists in articles written for publications like Science, the New England Journal of Medicine, and many others. The intended audience of scientific and professional journals are scientists (the authors' peers) and others in related professions. Articles on AIDS also appear in newspapers and in popular magazines like Time and Newsweek. The general public is the primary audience for popular magazines, newspapers, television, and radio. Scholarly and professional journals publish reports written by the researchers themselves; articles in popular magazines are written by journalists. Consequently, journal articles usually cover a subject in more depth than do magazines, newspapers, and other popular media.

A critical approach to evaluating information is especially needed on the Internet, where information is often unorganized and presented without any indication of its source or quality. Anyone can post information on the Web. In most cases, there are no reviewers or editors to sift out the substantive material from the ruminations of crackpots. The user often has no assistance in judging the quality of Internet-based information.
 

Guidelines for evaluating information sources

1. Read a wide range of sources on your topic. To promote balance in developing your own ideas, do not rely on any single source of information by itself. Reading multiple sources better enables you to detect biases and make informed choices on your own.
2. Beware of oversimplification of issues in popular publications, editorials, news reports, speeches, etc.
3. Do not automatically accept information simply because it appears in a scholarly publication; find out what the author's peers and others have to say about it, too. Book reviews, letters to magazine and journal editors, and similar sources often reveal other viewpoints.
4. Currency. Beware of dated material in any subject (especially on any aspect of science and technology). As a general rule, you should always begin an information search by finding the most recent publications, and then look for older publications if necessary.
5. Know the author's credentials and qualifications. Is the author a professional journalist or a researcher reporting his/her findings? Is the person a celebrity speaking about a political, health, or public policy issue, or one who has experience with the issue under discussion? You can find biographical information on many authors in a number of reliable online biographical sources and in the Reference area of the UNR Main Library.
6. Bias. Is the author's background likely to result in a highly biased perspective? Does he or she have personal, political, or professional interests to promote? Bias may be evident if important information has been ignored or omitted. When you detect bias, it's a clue for you to look for other viewpoints and compare them with the source at hand.

Once you evaluate an article, book, Web site or other source by the criteria listed above, you are better prepared to judge its claims, arguments or conclusions. Your course instructors and the library faculty are available to offer guidance in selecting and appropriately using information.