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ENG 151: Information Literacy - Source Evaluation

What Kind of Information Do You Have?

Knowing more about your information can help you evaluate it properly. Start by identifying its format and then the source type.

Format refers to how information is packaged or organized: is it in an academic journal? a book?

What's not an information format:

  • Google (or any other search engine): it's a tool to help you find information!
  • Website: a website is just where you find information online. Format refers to the content on the website: is it news? a blog?

Source type refers to the specific piece of information, like the article in a journal. 

Both the information format and source type can tell you more about:

  • How the information was created.
  • Its intended audience.
  • What kind of review and publication process it went through.

There is a range of source types that reflects their intended audience; purpose; appearance; and length of their creation, review, and publication processes.

Popular Sources

  • Content created and published quickly
  • Some review, maybe none
  • May or may not cite sources
  • Written by anyone
  • Audience is the general public
  • Appearance is colorful, contains images, and may contain ads
  • Purpose is to inform, entertain, discuss current events, share opinions, sell a product, monetize content

Scholarly Sources

  • Content is created after considerable research done by experts
  • Content is reviewed extensively by other experts
  • Written by experts in that research area
  • Audience is other researchers or scholars
  • Appearance is plain, starts with an abstract, and contains a lengthy list of references at the end
  • Purpose is to share findings from original research

Other Sources

Some source types don't neatly fit in the popular or scholarly categories. This includes academic information retrieved from books, primary sources, government documents, statistics, etc. These sources are reviewed more thoroughly and take longer to be published than common popular sources, but they have not gone through the official peer review process.