Research: Evaluating Sources

On Monday, March 22 we talked about finding evidence. For today’s Learning Module, you were asked to read two chapters from our textbook (one was VERY short) on “evaluating sources” and questions to ask when choosing sources to work with.

Let’s focus on evaluating sources, first.

Here are some questions you can consider when evaluating the relevance and quality of a source:

    • how is it relevant to your research question?
    • who wrote it (expert? google or google scholar. expert but are they expert in subject they are talking about?)?
    • Reputation of publisher?
    • What are author and publisher’s goals and why?
    • How recent was this, potentially outdated?
    • how credible are sources they cite?
    • how specialized?
    • who was this written for?
    • enough information here to support your research?
    • can you access full document?
    • what is left out?
    • can it be corroborated by other sources?
    • what is web address and is that clue for credibility?
    • does it cite sources for claims?
    • mix of perspectives represented fairly?

Task

So let’s try this out. Using the questions above and what you read from the “Evaluating Sources” chapter, let’s use the example research question we used on Monday, March 22 to try to evaluate some sources. Here again is that example research question:

How susceptible are older people (approx. age 60 and older) to fake news and why?

In a comment below, find a source that you think might be relevant to this question using some of the methods (find sources by using some of the methods we talked about on Monday, 3/22) and try to answer 2 of the questions above.

In your comment, identify the questions you chose and your answers to the questions.

Button that says click to continue

7 thoughts on “Research: Evaluating Sources”

  3. https://search-proquest-com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/docview/2474916734?pq-origsite=primo&accountid=8500

    1. How specialized?
    This article is regarding the effects of fake news on Covid 19 preventions. This article does not discuss the susceptibility of elders on fake news.
    2. What are author and publisher’s goals and why?
    The author and the publishers goal are to inform the general public on the effects of fakes news regarding to the Covid 19 pandemic. The author also discusses the effects the fake news has on the public and health organizations.

  4. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2019-01-09/study-older-people-are-more-susceptible-to-fake-news-more-likely-to-share-it

    1. How is it relevant to your research question?
    The article talks about how older people are much more susceptible to fake news. This is exactly what I am looking for and would help me a lot.
    2. What are author and publisher’s goals and why?
    The author is trying to show us how people that are much older will most likely be much more influenced by the fake news because they dont really understand how all of that works and they dont know that these news anchors and either being biased or not. They think what ever is on the news is correct and that isnt always the case in this day and age. We know that but the older people dont.

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