E: Review and Evaluate Sources - Deciding what's good, what's bad and what's useful

Every day more information on any given topic is published through various formats, the internet being the easiest to publish on as well as the easiest to search. However, just because it's the first result, doesn't mean it's the most reliable, or the one that best serves your needs.

Taking steps to evaluate your resources to determine its origin and reliability, no matter what the format is an important skill to have and practice.

What to look for:

Authority
Who wrote it?
For books and periodicals:
-- Can you identify the author/creator of the work? -- The author can be an individual, an agency, an institution.
-- What expertise do they have?

On the internet:

Currency
When was it written?
- Does your topic require more recent information?
- Are you doing historical research, and current information isn't required.
- Is the topic ever changing (ex. Medicine)

Validity/Accuracy

Audience
For books, periodicals and the internet:

Point of View/Bias
For books, periodicals and the internet: