Myra Kraft Achievers Program (MKAP): Library Research Guide

Peer Review in Three Minutes by NCSU Libraries is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US.

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When you're evaluating a source there are many things to consider, depending on your purpose and assignment. There are even different ways to evaluate academic sources (also known as scholarly or peer-reviewed sources) compared to news sources, internet sources, or even social media.

Whether the source is academic (scholarly, peer-reviewed), news, social media, a video, or even a primary source, the most important piece to evaluating a resource is: Is this source relevant to my topic?

• How does it help me to answer my research question?  How does it help me to learn and create new knowledge?
• How does this source support or challenge my thesis statement?  Would addressing the challenge make my argument stronger?
• Is this source a foundational part of my argument, or extra information that might help?
• Is this source off-topic?  If so, tuck it away for another project and move on!
• Is the information current and up-to-date?  Does that even matter for my purposes?

The following tips here apply mostly to the academic sources you'll be using as the foundation of your research:

Audience

• Who is the intended audience for this source?
• Is the material too technical, too clinical, too basic, or just right for you?
• Is the material too technical, clinical, basic, or just right for your audience? 

Academic vs. Popular Sources

• What kind of publication is this from--an academic journal? A magazine? Something else?
• Has the source undergone peer review? Did it go through any editorial or fact-checking process?

Documentation

• Does the article, book, or website have footnotes, a bibliography, or list of works cited? 
• Does the source link to other sources, even if it doesn't have a list of works cited?
• What is the quality or reliability of the sources being cited?
• For a news source: Did the author do original reporting (e.g., interviewing people, gathering documentation, etc.)?  Or is this source repackaging someone else's reporting?

Currency

• When was the source published? 
• Is the source current or out of date for your topic?  
• If it is a website, when was it last updated?

Tip: Topics in some subject areas will often require more current information, other topics might require older information, or historical material. 

Authority

• Who is the author?  Who takes responsibility for the information in this source?
• Does the author list their credentials or qualifications?  More broadly, what expertise can they offer on the topic they are writing about?
• Is the author associated with a reputable institution or organization?  How do you know if the institution is reputable?

Objectivity

• What point of view does the author represent?
• Does the publisher have a particular editorial position, or political point of view?
• If the author or publisher is an institution, what does that institution say about its purpose/mission or position?  What do other sources say about that institution?
• Is the article an editorial or persuasive essay that is trying to argue a position?

Context

• How much context does your audience need to understand why you're using this source?
• Do your readers need to understand anything about the authority, objectivity, or currency of the source?
• If it's from a non-academic source like social media, why are you using it? What kind of evidence does it provide?

*Some of the material on this page was adapted from the University of California Berkeley Library's website, "Critical Evaluation of Resources" and Cornell University Library's "Critically Analyzing Information Resources."

For many of your assignments at Brandeis, your professors will ask you to use scholarly articles in your research. Library databases often have a menu option for limiting your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, but you should also understand the characteristics of a scholarly journal article so that you'll be able to recognize these sources.

This chart outlines the basic differences between articles from popular publications and articles from scholarly journals:

This chart is based on the University of Texas Austin Libraries' "Popular, Scholarly, or Trade?" guide and UNC Chapel Hill's "Types of Journals" guide.