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The questions on this page should help you explain why a particular source is a good fit for your research project.

When you encounter any kind of source,consider:

Authority

Purpose

Publication & format

Relevance

Date of Publication

Documentation

To find out more about an author:Google the author's name or dig deeper in the library's biographical source databases.

To find scholarly sources:When searching library article databases, look for a checkbox to narrow your results to Scholarly, Peer Reviewed or Peer Refereed publications.

To evaluate a source's critical reception:Check in the library's book and film review databasesto get a sense of how a source was received in thepopular and scholarly press.

To evaluate internet sources:The internet is a great place to find both scholarly and popular sources, but it's especially important to ask questions about authorship and publication when you're evaluating online resources. If it's unclear who exactly created or published certain works online, look for About pages on the site for more information, or search for exact quotations from the text in Google (using quotation marks) to see if you can find other places where the work has been published.

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Home - Evaluating Resources - Library Guides at UC Berkeley