Evaluating Information Sources

This gives you questions to think about when looking at sources as well as resources to help you determine the credibility of certain information organizations. 

Main Criteria

Instead of automatically accepting information at face value, you should consider the:

1. context 
2. purpose, and
3. intended audience 

A couple clues and pitfalls to watch out for: ​

• Biased language/general use of language
• Websites you cannot get back to
• No author or no information on an author
• The other places the same news story appears

There are so many information sources out there! What kinds are best to use for your paper? Why? How do you recognize them? Check out the "Know Your Sources" infographic from  Portland Community College.