Authority: the expertise of the author(s). This is perhaps the first aspect you should consider. Who is the author? What are his/her credentials? Find out who your author is whenever possible: professional connections, for example: is the author a university professor in the field, or a manager of a related business, or a practising professional of some kind? When in doubt, ask your professors — they often know who the trusted researchers are in their fields. Alternatively, you can "google" the author to find a list of his/her published works, home university, professional affiliations, etc.

Objectivity: a balanced, unbiased presentation of the information. Be careful that the source is not slanted in any direction because of the authors’ point of view, preconceived ideas, prejudices, and the like. This is a difficult aspect to assess. You should stay away from a source which is generated by those who have something to gain from particular results or viewpoints. As above, knowing the author’s and/or publisher’s background information can help you assess the objectivity.

Currency: recent, up-to-date information. Your source information should be as recent as possible in most cases, especially if your topic is in science, medicine, sociology, economics, or the like. For example, assume you are studying how to encourage growth in the tourism industry. If you found two articles, one written in 1993 and one from 2007, which one would you choose? The more current one would probably have more useful information (unless you are comparing how things have changed).

Reliability: confidence in the truth of the information. You should evaluate the trust-worthiness of a source. Is the information accurate? To assess this aspect, one should ask, where is it published? By whom? You want to use information from respected researchers and writers, government data sites, European Unionfactsheets, and the like.

Posledná zmena: utorok, 2 novembra 2010, 17:34