LEARNING OBJECTIVES

* To understand why evaluating information is necessary.
* To know how to find information about an author's background and qualifications.
* To know how to find published reviews of books.

* To know how to find information about periodicals.
* To know the basic principles of evaluating web sites.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Preface
2. Finding Information about Authors
3. Evaluating Books
4. Evaluating Periodical Articles
5. Evaluating Websites
6. Key Points to Remember

1. PREFACE

It has been said that an educated person is someone who can make distinctions by recognizing and separating the significant from the irrelevant, the high quality from the average, and the coherent from the distorted. The ability to make these kinds of distinctions is especially important when doing research, because not everything your research uncovers will be of equal value. Some of the information you find will be relevant and credible, but some will not, and much will be somewhere in-between.
Research, therefore, is not merely finding information; it's also about evaluating it for usefulness and credibility. You must make value judgments about the worth of information sources, because the quality of the information you find is vastly more important than the quantity. This lesson will teach you specific criteria for making these evaluations.

2. FINDING INFORMATION ABOUT AUTHORS

The first step in evaluating any information source—whether it be a book, periodical article, or website—is to ask yourself two questions:

Question #1: Who is the author(s)?

There are only 3 possibilities: a person or persons, an organization, or not given. It is the convention in all academic and formal writing for name of the author(s) to be clearly identified. If no author is given, that must be kept in mind when evaluating the source as a whole and could reduce its credibility.

Have you seen this author’s name cited in other sources or bibliographies? Respected authors are often cited by other scholars. For that reason, take note of those authors that appear in many sources.

Question #2: Is he/she/they qualified to be writing on this topic? Is this the author’s area of expertise?

To answer this question you must try to find out something about the author’s background in terms of education, experience, occupation, position, past writings, political perspective, professional or academic affiliations, awards, etc.

Where do you find this background information? There are several places to look:

* The source itself.

Articles frequently have brief information about the author on the first or last page.

Books may give information about the author at the beginning or end, or on the back cover or inside cover. If the book has an introduction written by someone other than the author, some details about the author will usually be given.

If your information source is a website, look for links such as these on the homepage: “About the Author,” “About Us,” or “Who We Are.”

* Websites

To search for web pages that give information about an author, use a web search engine (e.g. Google) and enter the name in quotation marks, first name first. Keep in mind that authors who are faculty members at colleges and universities often list their credentials at their school’s website.

* Books

If the author is an important literary figure or politically or culturally prominent, entire books may be written about him or her. Books about people can be found in library catalogs (e.g. the PLS online catalog) by doing a subject search using the author’s name as the subject. (Remember to search by the last name first.)

* Periodical articles

Magazines and newspapers frequently write articles profiling authors. Use periodical databases such as Gale's InfoTrac Expanded Academic ASAP to find these articles. Start by searching the author’s name as a subject (last name first) to see if any articles are written about the author. If you don't find any articles specifically about the author, do a full-text keyword search (author’s name entered, first name first) to find articles in which your author’s name is mentioned anywhere in the text.

* Online databases

Information about literary authors or especially well-known authors may be found in either of two subscription databases accessible through Cañada College Library:

-- Gale's Literature Resource Center includes biographical information on over 100,000 writers.

-- Gale's Biography Resource Center provides biographical information on nearly 275,000 people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.

* Specialized print reference sources

Contemporary Authors (REF Z1224.C6). One of the most comprehensive sources of information about writers of all literary genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, etc.) who have lived since 1900 and whose work has been published in the U.S. or translated into English.

Who's Who in America (REF E176.W642). Contains brief biographical information on notable Americans.

American Men and Women of Science (REF Q141.A474). An 8-volume set providing biographical information about scientists and engineers from North America who have made significant contributions in their field.

Now that you have some information about the author, you can move on to evaluating the content of the information source itself.

3. EVALUATING BOOKS

One of the best ways to begin evaluating a book is to find book reviews and learn what other people think about it. Book reviews summarize and critique the ideas presented in a book, thus giving you a deeper understanding of the work and helping you decide if it's relevant to your topic.

Book reviews are published in magazines, journals, newspapers, and on the Internet. Listed below are common ways to find book review articles:

* General periodical databases (such as Cañada’s Gale Infotrac databases):
Usually used to find reviews of general interest books. Enter the title of the book (if it is unique). If not unique, enter the title and the author. If a title plus author search does not limit your results enough, type “AND,” then add the term “review.”

* Subject periodical databases: (such as Proquest Biology Journals and many others)
Used to find reviews of academic and specialized books.

* Newspaper databases (such as Gale's Full-text Newspapers):
Used in the same way as general periodical databases.

* Newspaper websites (such as the New York Times Book Review web page):
Websites for major newspapers are often good sources for reviews of recent books.

* Book Review websites:
There are a number of websites that specifically provide book reviews written either by professional reviewers or by readers who are interested enough to write and send in their personal reviews. Yahoo has a directory of many of these book review sites at http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Literature/Reviews/. The books reviewed are primarily recent popular works.

* Amazon.com and other online bookstores:
Online bookstores list a large number of books of all types, many of which include brief reviews. It is very important to check closely the source of the reviews or descriptions included in online bookstore sites since they tend to include more favorable descriptions (that may seem like reviews) submitted by publishers. Brief reviews submitted by readers are also often found.

Although there is much more involved in the overall process of evaluating a book, finding reviews is a crucial first step.

4. EVALUATING PERIODICAL ARTICLES

Evaluating periodical articles begins by asking yourself: “Who is responsible for the article?” This is sometimes referred to as evaluating the authority of the article and involves looking for information about two things:

* the author(s) of the article, and

* the publication in which the article was published.

Section 2 of this lesson has already discussed how to find information about an author. After you have some idea of the authority of the author, you investigate the publication itself by asking: “What type of periodical is this?”

TYPES OF PERIODICALS

You may recall from Lesson 3, section 7, that there are 5 types of periodicals. Let’s review them briefly:

1) Scholarly and Research Journals -- specialized publications intended for scholars and students of a particular discipline or subject.

2) Professional Magazines and Journals -- – publications that report on news and developments in a particular profession, academic field, trade, or industry.

3) Magazines and Journals of Commentary and Opinion --offer analysis, commentary, and investigative reporting on social and political issues. These publications typically view the world from either a politically liberal, moderate, or conservative stance.

4) Popular Magazines and News Magazines -- commercial publications intended for the general reader.

5) Newspapers -- daily publications that provide local, national, and international news, editorials, entertainment, advertising and other sorts of practical information.

To identify the periodical type and to find out more about the publication, such as its political perspective and the types of articles it publishes, you can do this:

* Go to the publication's website (if it has one). From the publication's home page, look for any description or hints about the publication's perspectives or affiliations. Look for links such as "About Us," or "About this publication," or "Publisher's Information." You can usually find a publication's website by using a search engine such as Google. Type in the full title of the periodical (in quotation marks) and the website should come up near the top of the result list.
* Search the print source Magazines for Libraries
Publication information from a publisher's website is not always objective since it is written by its own staff. Therefore, consider consulting Magazines for Libraries, a reference book which is available at Cañada Library (Z 6941 .M23 2004). Magazines for Libraries provides relatively unbiased descriptions of about 6,900 of the most important magazines in all fields. It is available only in print.

In addition to the descriptive annotations, Magazines for Libraries also provides publication information about each periodical that can be useful when evaluating the publication. The information for each title includes:
-- frequency of publication: abbreviations indicate if the periodical is published weekly (w), monthly (m),bi-monthly (bi-m), quarterly (q), etc.
-- publisher: you can check whether the periodical is published by an academic organization, a commercial company or other group
-- whether or not the journal is "refereed." If the periodical is refereed, the word "refereed" precedes "Circ." information
-- a list of periodical databases that index the publication
To summarize, you gain a deeper perspective on an article by taking the time to find some information about the author and the publication in which it appears.

5. EVALUATING WEBSITES

You may recall from Lesson 3 that roughly 50% of the Web is what’s known as the Visible Web. The Visible Web contains free websites found by using search engines and the quality of those websites varies dramatically. There are no restrictions, guidelines, or review processes for these free websites. Therefore, you must examine these free websites closely, using your critical thinking skills to judge for yourself the validity and credibility of the information provided.

How do you evaluate a website? The best overall approach is to first examine the authorship and then the content. Let’s take a look at specific criteria to consider for each:

AUTHORSHIP

1) Begin by identifying the domain type within the URL. This is a key factor when evaluating a site since it indicates where the information originates. There are 6 domain types:

.edu: an educational institution (can be anything from scholarly research to zany student pages)
.gov: a government body (usually dependable)
.com: a commercial enterprise (may be trying to sell a product)
.net: network
.org: a non-profit organization (may or may not be biased)
.mil: a military body

2) WHO, specifically, is the presenter, or author, of the material? Responsible web publications should name the creator of the information in a readily visible place on the page. Is the author an organization? Is an author not given?

To find the author or organization responsible for a particular webpage, you may need look at the website that the specific webpage is part of.
To do this, you can look for a link to the website home page from the selected page (look at the top and bottom of the page for links.)
If there is no link from the page, you can try to find the homepage of the website by using the URL (web address.) Try removing file or directory names from the end of the URL to access the homepage for the course.

3) Is the author/creator part of, or affiliated with, an institution or group? Is it an impartial group (like a university) or a group established to promote an idea or point of view (like the National Rifle Association)?

4) What are the author’s QUALIFICATIONS or CREDENTIALS? What is his/her/their background in terms of education, experience, occupation, position, affiliation, or publications? Why does or doesn’t this background make the author(s) in question an expert?

5) Can you discern anything about the CREDIBILITY or REPUTATION of the author or producer of the information?

CONTENT

1) What type of website is this? There are 6 types of websites:

TYPE EXAMPLES
Advocacy (http://www.nra.org)
Business (http://www.landsend.com)
Entertainment (http://www.mtv.com)
Informational (http://www.landmarkcases.org)
News (http://www.msnbc.com)
Personal (http://www.harvard.edu/~rixstuff/)

NOTE: Some websites may be a combination of 2 or more of the above
(e.g. http://www.howstuffworks.com).

2) What type of information is being presented at this website? There are at least 7 possibilities:

Scholarly (written by researchers in the field)
Professional (written by and primarily for those in a specific profession)
Popular (written for the general public, i.e. those with no special expertise or training)
Commercial (an advertisement for a service or product)
Advocacy (opinion pieces)
Governmental (provided by local, state, or federal government)
Entertainment

NOTE: some combination of 2 or more of the above types of information may be offered at the same websites.

3) Purpose: What is the goal or aim of the site? To inform? Explain? Persuade? Market a product? Advocate a cause? Present a parody or satirize a person, organization, or idea? Entertain? When figuring out the purpose of a site, keep this question in mind: “Who is the intended audience?”

4) Substance: Does the site provide a substantive, in-depth discussion of the topic, or merely a cursory, superficial overview? Is this a “sound bite”? Does it emphasize style over substance? Brevity over depth? A flashy design does not necessarily mean good quality information.

5) Sources: Where did the author gather the information presented? Was it from original research, experiments, observation, interviews, books and documents?

6) Documentation: If lots of factual information is given, does the author cite his/her sources? Verify that the author used authoritative sources to back up his/her arguments and conclusions.

7) Bias: Does the site show signs of any political, ideological, cultural, or personal biases? Is the site presenting an extremist or wildly unorthodox view? (Such views may be inherently biased.)

8) Currency: Is there a date on the page that indicates when the site was placed on the web or updated? Is there a copyright date? Is the information or the site itself out of date? Is currency not a crucial factor for the topic covered by this website?

9) Writing style: Is the content free of grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors? These types of errors indicate carelessness and lack of professionalism.
Is the information presented in a clear, reasonable, and orderly way? Or is it written in a confusing, disorganized or illogical manner?

What is the author’s overall writing style? Is it appropriate to the topic being presented? Be aware that an author’s style (dry, humorous, objective, overly complex, sarcastic, histrionic, tedious, etc) can prejudice your perception of the information.

6. KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER

* Research is not merely finding information; it's also about evaluating it for usefulness and credibility.

* The first step in evaluating any information source (i.e. books, periodical articles, or websites) is to ask yourself two questions:

Question #1: Who is the author(s)?

Question #2: Is he/she/they qualified to be writing on this topic? Is this the author’s area of expertise?
There are several ways to learn background information about an author, including the information source itself, websites, books, periodical articles, online databases, and specialized print reference books.

* One of the best ways to begin evaluating a book is to find book reviews and learn what other people think about it. Book reviews are published in magazines, journals, newspapers, and on the Internet.

* Evaluating periodical articles begins by evaluating the authority of the article. This involves looking for information about the author and the publication in which the article appeared.

* Two ways to find out more about a periodical is to go to the publication’s website and/or search the print source Magazines for Libraries.

* There are no restrictions, guidelines, or review processes for free websites found in the Visible Web. Therefore, you must examine these free websites closely, using your critical thinking skills to judge for yourself the validity and credibility of the information provided.

* Websites are evaluated by examining the authorship and the content using specific criteria for each.

Lesson 5 Assignment
Due:
NAME:

The point value for each question is noted. Total points for this assignment: 37 points

Please answer all of the questions below and then email your completed assignment to your instructor, Dave Patterson, at pattersond@smccd.net .

1. Based on feedback from your instructor, select the best website or web page you found for Assignment 4 and evaluate this site or page by providing information for each of the criteria and guidelines below.
(Review “Evaluating Websites” in section 5 above.)
Your evaluation is your assessment of the usefulness and credibility of the site or page. Give evidence and examples to back up your answers. Do not merely give your general impressions.
Begin by writing the title of the website or web page and the full URL (starting with: http://) (2 points):

Authorship

a. What is the domain type of the website? (1 point)
b. Name of the author or organization responsible for writing the page (1 point):
c. Is the author part of, or affiliated with, an institution or group? If so, is it an impartial group or a group established to promote an idea or point of view? (2 points)
d. What are the author’s QUALIFICATIONS or CREDENTIALS? Why does or doesn’t this make him/her/they an expert? (3 points)
e. What can you discern about the CREDIBILITY or REPUTATION of the author or producer of the information? (3 points)
Content

f. What type of website is this? (1 point)
g. What type of information is being presented at this website? (1 point)
h. Purpose: What is the goal or aim of the site? Who is the intended audience? (2 points)
i. Substance: Does the site provide a substantive, in-depth discussion of the topic, or merely a cursory, superficial overview? (2 points)
j. Sources/documentation: Where did the author gather the information presented? Does the author cite his/her sources? (1 point)
k. Bias: Does the site show signs of any political, ideological, cultural, or personal biases? (2 points)
l. Currency: Is there a date on the page that indicates when the page was written or updated? Is the information out of date? Is currency not a crucial factor for the topic covered by this website? (1 point)
m. Writing style: Is the information presented in a clear, reasonable, and orderly way? What is the author’s overall writing style? Is it appropriate to the topic being presented? (2 points)

2. Select one magazine or journal article OR one book on your research topic. (You may chose one you found in one of the previous assignments or you may, instead, choose another article or book you have found that is on your research topic.) Find the following information that would help you evaluate the article OR the book:
- For evaluating a magazine or journal article, you must find:
a) some information about the publication in which the article was published and
b) some information about the author.

- For evaluating a book, you must find:
a) one book review article that reviews the book, and
b) some information about the author.
Please provide the information requested below:
If you are evaluating a magazine or journal article, list the following information (3 points):
Article being evaluated:
• Title of article:
• Author(s):
• Source (title of the periodical):
• Date:
• Volume # and issue # (if given):
• Page # (if given):

Evaluation sources:

a. One source of information that describes the publication in which the article was published:

(This can usually be found from the publication’s website as explained in section 4 of the reading.)

• Give the title and URL of the publication’s website (2 points):

• Briefly summarize the description of the publication, focusing on the publication’s political or ideological perspective, organizational affiliations, reputation, etc. (3 points):

b. One source of information about the author of the article:
(Finding information about an author is discussed in section 2 of the reading.)

• If the author information is from a web page, give the title and URL of the web page (2 points):
-or-
• If the author information is from an article, give the title, author, source and date of the article (2 points):

• What did you learn about the author’s qualifications, credibility or reputation? (3 points)

If you are evaluating a book, list the following information:
Book being evaluated (3 points):

• Author of the book:
• Title of the book:
• Year the book was published:

Evaluation sources:

a. One article or web page that reviewed the book (5 points)
(Finding book reviews is discussed in section 3 above.)
• Author of an article or web page that reviewed the book you selected, if available:
• Title of the periodical or web site in which the review appeared:
• Date of the periodical or web page in which the review appeared:
• Page(s) of the review article (if the review article is from a periodical):
• URL of the web page (if the review article is from a web page):

b. One source of information about the author of the book being evaluated
(Finding information about an author is discussed in section 2 above.)

• If the author information is from a web page, give the title and URL of the web page (2 points):
-or-
• If the author information is from an article, give the title, author, source and date of the article (2 points):

• What did you learn about the author’s qualifications, credibility or reputation? (3 points)

Revised for Cañada College Library by Lynne Vieth and Dave Patterson, July 2006.
These materials may be used for educational purposes if you inform and credit the author, Eric Brenner, and cite the source as “LSCI 100, Introduction to Information Research.” All commercial rights are reserved. To contact the author, send comments/suggestions to Brenner@smccd.net .