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GNDR_ST 332 Black Feminist Health Science Studies

Evaluating Information

Using a mix of different source types is important for your research, allowing you to draw upon sources that emphasize facts (news, popular magazine articles), research results (peer reviewed articles), knowledge synthesis and interpretation (books), and first hand experience (primary sources).

Evaluate sources in all formats, e.g. websites, articles, books, videos. to ensure that you are finding the mix of source types that you need, and that your professor may require.  Criteria such as those in the chart below can guide your critical evaluation of each source.

Criteria

Questions to Ask

Authority
  • Who (person, organization, company) created the source?
  • What are their credentials/affiliation or experience that qualify them on this topic?
  •  What editorial process was used to disseminate this resource? Peer review? Journalism?
  • If a website, does the URL provide insight? Examples .gov, .edu, .com, .org, .net

Currency
  • Does your topic require current information? If so, when was the source written and published?
  • Has the information been revised or updated recently?

Truth
  • How accurate is the information? Can you verify the claims in other resources?
  • Has the information been reviewed? Is there a bibliography?
  • What type of evidence is used to support claims or arguments?

Unbiased
  • Is the information presented to impact your emotions or your reason?
  • Is the purpose to sell? To teach? To persuade? To entertain?
  • Does the point of view appear objective or unbiased?

Privilege
  • Check the privilege of the author(s). Who is missing from the conversation?
  • Critically evaluate the subject terms associated with each resource you find. How are they described? What are the inherent biases?
  • What is the purpose of the publication? To sell, teach, persuade or entertain?

 Adapted from Dawn Stahura, "ACT UP: Evaluating Resources for Social Justice," accessed January 4, 2022, https://goo.gl/9G1KTH

Academic or Popular?

When using the ACT UP evaluation criteria the answers to the questions should help you to determine whether a source is Popular or Scholarly, as characterized in this chart.

Primary or Secondary?

Primary sources provide the raw data you use to support your arguments. Some common types of primary resources include manuscripts, diaries, court cases, maps, data sets, experiment results, news stories, polls, or original research.  One other way to think about primary sources is the author was there.

Secondary sources analyze primary sources, using primary source materials to answer research questions.  Secondary sources may analyze, criticize, interpret or summarize data from primary sources. The most common secondary resources are books, journal articles, or reviews of the literature. 

Depending on the subject in which you are doing your research, what counts as a primary or secondary source can vary!  Here are some examples of types of sources that relate to dragons in different disciplines:

If your class is in... Primary Source Example Secondary Source Example
English Beowulf More About the Fight With the Dragon
Anthropology The Tello Obelisk (photo) Encounters with Dragons: The Stones from Chavin
Biology Dragon's Blood Exerts Cardio-Protection Against Myocardial Injury... Dragon's Blood Secretion and Its Ecological Significance

There are many types of primary resources, so it is important to define your parameters by:

  • Discipline (e.g. art, history, physics, political science)
  • Format (e.g. book, manuscript, map, photograph)
  • Type of information you need (e.g. numerical data, images, polls, government reports, letters)
  • Date range

Look at the Primary and Secondary Sources guide for more clarification on what primary and secondary sources are in different disciplines!