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Govt 405 - Senior Seminar: Politics of the Crowd

Tips for Evaluation Sources

You want the best information to support your research!

Use these criteris to evaluate sources and determine whether they are reliable enough to be use.

Accuracy/Quality

Accuracy and quality refer to the correctness, truthfulness, and overall excellence of the information. To determine a source's accuracy and quality, ask these questions:

Is the information logical, well-organized, and supported by evidence?

Has it been edited or peer-reviewed?

Is it free from errors -- both content errors and spelling/grammar errors?

If it's a website, is it professional in appearance? Does it look like something that was casually thrown up on the web, or has time and care gone into its presentation?

TIP: The peer-review process used by many scholarly journals is designed to guarantee a certain amount of accuracy and quality in the publication of scholarly information.