There are many sources of scientific information out there, but not all of them are credible or accurate. When you find a source, consider:
The information on this page will guide you through the process of answering these questions as you evaluate each source. Source evaluation can be tricky. If you're ever unsure, get a second opinion -- ask a classmate, professor, or your librarian!
There is a lot of information on the internet, and not all of it is credible or accurate. Here are a few things to consider as you consider whether a website is appropriate to cite in your paper.
In general: stick to sources that are written by authors that are knowledgeable in the topic area that they are writing about and organizations that are well known and well respected.
Check if an author is listed and consider their credentials. The most credible sources will be written by authors who have an advanced degree in the topic area. It is also a good sign if they have written other articles on similar topics. You can do a quick Google search to get more information about an author.
If no author is listed, try to identify which organization posted the content. Check for an "About Us" page or mission statement to get more information about an organization. You can do a quick Google search to get more information about their reputation. Check for any potential sources of bias. For example, if a website is written by a private company or a political agenda, they may be trying to persuade readers to buy something or take a particular political belief.
If you cannot find information on an author or an organization that posted the content, find a different source to use instead.
You want to make sure you are getting information that is up to date. There is no rule about how current your information needs to be, although professors will sometimes ask you to find sources that were published within the last 5 or 10 years. In general, newer is best, but how new your sources need to be depends on your topic. If you are research a very popular topic where our knowledge is evolving rapidly, it is especially important to find recent information.
Websites that contain advertisements can be biased because these ads allow the author or publisher to make money from their content. Not all websites that have ads are poor quality, however. Many news sites are supported by advertisements, for example. Pay attention to the type of ads that appear. If they are flashy and very distracting, that is a sign that it is not a trustworthy website.
Check the website's overall appearance. Credible sources should have a professional website that is free of typos, broken links, and other obvious errors. If the website is difficult to read or navigate, find a different source to use instead.
Scholarly sources, which are also called peer reviewed articles, academic articles, scientific research articles, and refereed articles, and considered the most credible type of scientific information. However, even scientific articles can have flaws. Here are a few things to consider as you read scholarly articles:
Most authors should have a Masters or PhD related to the subject area they are writing about. In some cases, students can also be included in the author list of they made a significant contribution to their professor's research. However, the lead author should always have those credentials.
You can also look at an author's previous publications to determine their level of expertise. If they have written numerous articles on related topics and their past works have been cited in other research studies, then you can conclude that they are knowledgeable about the topic.
Scholarly sources are usually published in academic journals. Not all journals are high quality, so it is helpful to find information about the publisher as you evaluate an article.
Some journals, which are often called predatory journals, have limited or no peer review process and charge authors high publication fees in order to make a profit. Articles published in these predatory journals are considered less credible than other journal articles that went through a full peer review process.
Here are some clues to help you identify whether a journal is predatory:
You can also search for a journal name in Cabell's Predatory Reports, which is a searchable list of journals that are suspected to be predatory. If you click on a title in Cabell's, it will display that journal's violations, or red flags to keep in mind about that publisher.
You can also consider how impactful a journal is in the field as you evaluate sources. Several metrics are used to measure the impact of a journal, such as Impact Factor, CiteScore, h-index, and SciMago Journal Ranking (SJR) These metrics are all different ways of calculating the same thing: how frequently articles in a given journal are cited in other papers compared to other journals in the same academic field. You can find many of these metrics in the "Sources" tab of the database Scopus or by searching SciMago.
This link opens in a new windowWhen you are looking for scholarly articles in the sciences, you want to stick to sources that are peer reviewed. The peer review process is designed to prevent low quality research articles from being published by having multiple researchers that are knowledgeable in the topic area review an article’s scientific merit. However, in addition to just checking whether a journal has a peer review process, you should also see how thorough that peer review process is. You can often find this type of information on a journal’s “About Us,” “Information for Authors” or “Editorial Process” page.
In addition to consider who is responsible for the academic article, you should also evaluate the content of the article itself. You have a valid opinion even as a student, so please do take the time to consider whether an article is based on sound science and is appropriate for your research needs.
When you are searching for scientific literature, you are not always going to find articles that are an exact match for your topic. This is actually a good thing! If you are finding articles that conducted an identical study to the one that you are doing, then that means that your study is not very impactful because it has been done before. For this reason, you don’t need every article that you find to discuss every aspect of your research. Instead, you want to consider what similar topic areas may be relevant and exercise some personal judgment to determine which sources will help you to answer your research questions. I recommend reading an article’s abstract to get a quick impression of whether an article is relevant to your needs before committing to reading the entire thing.
You also want to consider whether an article is the right type of article for your research needs. In some situations, you need to find primary research articles, which are articles that present the results of an original research study. In other cases, you may prefer review articles, which summarize the existing scholarly literature in a specific topic area.
There is no universal rule about how current sources need to be. But in general, it is best to stick to the most current information you can find. How current your information needs to be will depend on your knowledge of the topic area. If a specific field of scientific research is rapidly evolving and you know that our knowledge of that area has changed significantly in recent years, then you will want to stick to sources that are current. In other cases, our knowledge of the field may have remained fairly consistent over time, so it may be fine to consult older sources. In general, you should evaluate the currency of your sources as a whole. If you stick to mostly current articles but have one or two that are a bit older, that is often fine. You do want to consider if those older sources are making claims that appear to contradict the findings of more recent research, however. If you have doubts, it’s better to find a newer source.
We rely upon the peer review process as a safeguard against low-quality publications. However, the peer review process is imperfect, so there are scientific articles out there that may contain inaccurate information. For this reason, it is important to read scientific journal articles with a critical eye and consider whether they are based on sound science. You may consider the same criteria as a peer reviewer when evaluating the accuracy of articles. For example, consider if the experimental methods seem appropriate for the study, if data is being analyzed in a logical way, if the conclusions the authors are drawing are well supported by evidence, and so forth. You can also consider whether an article makes similar claims to other research in the topic area or if it appears to contradict other research. It is certainly possible that an article that contradicts other research is still accurate, because theories may be disproven as our knowledge of science evolves.
The video below explains how you can evaluate a scientific research article to determine if it is a high quality source that is appropriate to cite in your own research. A word document version of this same content is also linked below.
