Library Research Workshop

Strategies for Evaluating Online Sources

The SIFT model encourages us to...

• Investigate the source 
  • What can you learn about the author/publisher to help put the source in context?
  • What can you learn about the publication's editorial process? 
• Find other trusted coverage
  • Are other sources publishing similar information and reaching a consensus, or is this claim up for debate?
  • How do various source types (news, investigative reporting, academic sources) cover this topic?
• Trace information upstream to the original source
  • What is the original context for this information?
  • Do the secondary sources report this information accurately?

Scholarly sources 

• All about peer-review: https://libguides.csudh.edu/peer-review   
• Evaluating a scholarly article:  
  • How to read an article: https://libguides.usc.edu/evaluate/scholarlyarticles 
  • How relevant is the question, methods, and conclusions to your research? 
  • Use Google Scholar “Cited By” feature to get a snapshot of impact 
• Evaluating scholarly journals:  
  • https://acrl.libguides.com/scholcomm/toolkit/evaluating  
  • Journal Evaluation Tool (rubric) 
  • Journal Rankings 
  • Citation metrics and Altmetrics