What Is A Credible Source?: Start the Discussion

Spending 15-20 minutes discussing credible sources early in the semester can alleviate a lot of anxiety and inappropiate resource use. A few suggestions: 

• Presume that your students have little knowledge of your expectations of college level research or how to evaluate credible sources.  It is important not to be dismissive of their past research behaviors, but simply explain your expectations and what constitutes a credible source to you.  
• Try using a video to help explain what is peer review. For example, the video to the right Peer Review in 5 Minutes.
• Create a an information sheet to help students understand credible sources such as the example to the right.

How to Determine a Credible Source

Ask yourself this following questions:

Who is the author?  Credible sources are written by authors respected in their fields of study.  Responsible, credible authors will cite their sources so that you can check the accuracy of and support for what they have written.

How recent is the source? The choice to seek recent sources depends on your topic.  While sources on the American Civil War may be decades old and still contain accurate information, sources on information technologies, or other areas that are experiencing rapid changes, need to be much more current.

Is it documented with footnotes or links?  That is, does the author of the website or article cite credible sources within their work or point you to credible sources via URLs, such as a medical article with links to a source in the New England Journal of Medicine?

What type of domain is the website? An educational—edu website can be written by any student with space on their college’s server.  It does not mean the website and or information contained within the website is factual or even credible.

                Examples of domain names:

                                .edu – educational sites

                                .gov – government sites

                                .org – organization sites

                                .com – commercial sites

                                .net – network infrastructures

Be especially careful when evaluating Internet sources! Never use Web sites where an author cannot be determined, unless the site is associated with a reputable institution such as a respected university, a credible media outlet, government program or department, or well-known non-governmental organizations.  Beware of using sites like Wikipedia, which are collaboratively developed by users.  Because anyone can add or change content, the validity of information on such sites may not meet the standards for academic research.

Finally ask yourself: Is this as good a resource as I could find in the library or through a library database (remember the library’s sources have been screened by librarians)?