Evaluating Sources in the Information Age April 14 and 15, 2014 By Laura Braden and Mariah Teerink, ELC

What Are Sources? ● Sources are research and information that are used to strengthen and add support to a paper ● Sources come in all different formats: – Websites – Books – Journals – News

Why Do We Use Different Sources? ● Sources add information to your papers ● They help support your argument and opinion ● They strengthen a paper by adding research and academic information

Evaluating Sources ● How to tell if a source is good – If it comes from a reliable source ● Author, publication (journal), website (.edu,.org,.gov) – When choosing sources, consider where they are coming from because all authors have some sort of bias ● Liberal vs. conservative ● Chinese censorship vs. western freedom

Finding Sources ● Library – Journals – Textbooks – Magazines ● Internet – Online journals and articles – Academic, school websites (.edu) – Organizations (.org) – Government websites (.gov)

Library Sources ● UIC Library ●

Internet Sources ● ● ● ●

Wikipedia ● NOT A VALID SOURCE ● NEVER CITE WIKIPEDIA IN A PAPER!!!! ● Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, so the information is not always accurate

Using Wikipedia ● You can use Wikipedia to find other reliable sources ● Check the citations at the bottom of the page to find reliable sources