Evaluate Sources for Reliability When you research a topic, it's important to use reliable sources. Reliable means credible, trustworthy, and objective. Finding reliable sources is extremely important to ensure that we understand the whole truth about the topic we're researching.
Only then can we provide the most accurate information to our audience. It can be difficult to determine the reliability of a source because sources can fall within a range of reliability. Some sources are completely unreliable, and others are highly reliable, but there are many sources that fall somewhere in between.
There are a few ways you can assess the reliability of a source to determine how you should use it in your research or if you should use it at all. First determine the author or publishing organization. It's important that the author is an expert on the topic.
Try to learn more about the author's education and experience in the field. It's also important to determine the author's purpose. Is the sole purpose to inform and educate the reader?
Or does the author also want to persuade, entertain, or sell something to the audience? Some authors and organizations may be biased. This means the author has such strong feelings or beliefs about a topic, they might ignore conflicting evidence.
A biased source may present information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or one-sided in order to persuade the audience to feel a certain way. Sometimes authors may even disguise their writing as informative, while actually trying to influence the reader's opinion on a topic. Even educational, non-profit, governmental, and news organizations can seem reliable but may have an underlying agenda.
An agenda is what the organization is trying to accomplish. It's important to recognize the agenda of an organization and seek a variety of sources on the same topic to find the objective truth. Look for common information between sources, and references that provide evidence to verify authors' claims.
In some cases it's helpful to consider the date of publication of a source. An original document created at the time of historical event may be more accurate than a secondary source written years later. Information about current events can change quickly, so sometimes more recent sources have the most up-to-date and accurate information.
Scientific understandings can change over time too, so it's important to be aware of any recent findings that may contradict previous conclusions. There are a few types of sources that are commonly unreliable. An advertisement trying to sell a product, service, or idea probably won't provide the most objective information.
A personal blog will describe the beliefs or opinions of an individual, but it may not represent the broader consensus on a topic or have supporting evidence. And social media posts often spread biased and inaccurate or sensational information to influence users opinions on controversial topics.
