GROUP MEMBERS: JOSEPH MCGILLICUDDY TEE MCCONNELL HEATHER KEENEY DUSTY SANDERS

OBJECTIVE To teach you how to properly evaluate academic sources that are either an article, website or book

WHERE SHOULD I LOOK INFORMATION INVOLVING MY SUBJECT? Academic seach premier Lexisnexis Jstor Biographies plus illustrated These are not the only places. just the places we found the most useful

HOW DO I KNOW IF THE SOURCE IS SIGNIFICANT, ACCURATE AND UNBIASED? *Svetlana Gladkova, Students Advised by Professors not to Use Wikipedia wikipedia/ 20 september 2011Students Advised by Professors not to Use Wikipediahttp://profy.com/2008/09/04/students-advised-not-to-use- wikipedia/

IS THE AUTHOR QUALIFIED TO ADDRESS THIS SUBJECT? Check Credentials ex. Phd. MBA.. etc Check work history. If he/she has worked at pets mart, but he/she is writing about biomechanical engineering. Probably not the best source. Look at past articles/books written by the author. Awards

KEY POINTS TO FINDING OUT IF THE INFORMATION IS BIASED OR NOT If the author tries to push their agenda about a certain subject and not relate/compare his information with other sources Check for a bibliography Check their history with the subject at hand Word choice

There are 3 types of sources Books Articles Websites There are easy steps that can be made depending on what type of source you are looking at. Each are assessed a little differently

ARTICLES we will take you through a quick run of what we got with our sources and how first up: Wall street journal article Purpose: Inform and Prove something to the reader Type of journal: Popular Magazine Organization and content: content was useful and was easy to read. Bias: somewhat leaning to the right. (word choice and tone) Date of article: Up-to-date Bibliography: small and selective. Used mostly own information (historian) Usefulness: extremely. Used comparisons to prove the point

ARTICLE CONTINUED Authority: Former President of the Society of American Historians. Focuses on presidents Coverage: the article covered the topic comprehensively Audience: casual reader/students

WEBSITES Websites are a little different with how you evaluate the information Here are the areas we look at for a website Does the author or organization have the background to be trusted with this information? Is the organization well known and trusted? Does the source contain a bibliography or other references? Has this source been through a Formal publication process? Has it been peer-reviewed by an expert? Does the site contain any bias? Is it up to date? *steps provided by handout from class.

WEBSITES bush-among-worst For our example we will use this journal above Experience: yes, she has written many other articles that revolve around politics Does the organization have a positive purpose: it does not seem to have a certain purpose but to just provide the information. Bibliography: no visible bibliography Publication/peer reviewed: U.S news and World Report LP. It has not been peer-reviewed Bias: no bias shown. Just straight facts presented. Up-to-date: yes. The article was published july 2, 2011

BOOKS Looking through books is very similar to articles. The book we choose was George W. Washington Evaluating the President at Midterm Purpose: to inform the reader Publisher: University press, SUNY Organization/content: very neat. Table of content is understandable, split into categories, easy to read Date of publication: Semi- Up-to-date Authority/author: no author found, just 3 editors. Usefulness: extremely, it goes through his time as president, unbiased Coverage: partial, but still extremely useful Audience: Students

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? How to properly evaluate a source based on it’s publisher, bias, date of publication, authority, audience and many other things How to navigate through the Mulibraries databases To mix in the information we have learned in the past with the new material gathered from the project.