| |
Search Tools: Source Analysis
Because not all information is created equally...
Source questions to answer:
Authority — What are the author’s qualifications for writing on this topic? Why should we believe this author?
Objectivity — Does the information generally agree with or contradict information you’ve found elsewhere? Is the author’s approach trying to persuade you to believe something? Is the publisher or web sponsor known for publishing controversial or highly liberally or conservatively slanted material? What do you learn when you enter the author’s or publisher’s name into an Internet search engine?
Currency — What is the publication date? Is it recent (within two years)? If not, what is the likelihood that there will have been changes in this field since the publication date? (i.e. a two year-old technology article will be nearly obsolete because of how fast the field is advancing, whereas the definitive work on quilting may be decades old).
| Source Analysis Table — Example |
| Standard MLA Source Listing |
Eliot, Lise. What’s Going on in There? Bantam: New York, 1999. |
| Source Analysis |
Authority: Eliot is a neuroscientist (Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School, received her Ph.D. in 1991 from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University and She has published some 20 works, including articles in peer-reviewed journals, popular magazines, and a monograph on brain development in children. Honors include a Magna cum laude bachelor's degree from Harvard) (http://www.finchcms.edu/cms/neuro/facultypages/Eliot/eliot.cfm ) and she is a parent (http://www.patwolfe.com/index.php?pid=102).
Objectivity: As a scientist Dr. Eliot would probably pride herself on objectivity and as a publisher, Bantam (a division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the foremost media companies in the world) publishes such a huge range of material, that it would be hard to say that they are biased in any particular direction (http://www.randomhouse.com/about/history.html).
Currency: Since brain research is a rapidly advancing field, I would not want to rely too heavily on a work that is nearly six years out of date, and, where other more current sources conflict with this one, I would use the information from the more current sources. |
For a template for use in evaluating your sources, CLICK HERE. |
