International Social Work year 2 - information skills: 3. Critically Assess

A source is credible if it is reliable. Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether or not sources are reliable. Here are a few points to consider when evaluating sources on reliability:

Further reading:

Scribbr Checklist reliable information

• Be skeptical!
• Research the references and connections of the source and author
• Evaluate which sources are cited by the author
• Verify that the source is up to date
• Check the approvals and reviews that the source has received
• Check if the source's publisher is reputable
• Beware of bias

-    Not the right information source
-    Combined too many elements from your search query
-    Typos or spelling errors
-    Searching with quote marks proved too limiting
-    Many possible variations in spelling
-    Overly general concepts
-    Difficult-to-specify element

-    Not enough terms used for best-match search
-    Not enough elements combined in Boolean search
-    If two words appear in a text, they are not always necessarily linked
-    Words with multiple meanings used
-    Search engine looked for word variants that you didn’t want
-    Forced to leave out element that was too difficult to specify
-    Many meaningless words in the full text

Checklist for assessing sources

Reliability

• Is the author a current expert? What is his/her position?
• Can the author be contacted? And how (email, phone, address, ...)?
• Has the author written anything else on this topic?
• Is the author often cited by others?

Correctness

• What is the purpose of the information source (advertising, propaganda,...)?
• Does the source contain facts or opinions?
• Are the opinions substantiated?
• Is the information consistent with information in other sources? Are there sources that report the same facts?
• Is the source usable? Does the information fulfil the information need?

Completeness

• Is there an overview of the sources used?
• Are all angles covered?
• Does the source contain the full text? Or is it a summary or a reference?

Topicality

• How recent is the information?
• Is the information still current, or has it become outdated?
• Has a new understanding of the topic developed in the meantime?

Verifiability

• Does the information contain references and/or a literature list?
• Have you read the sources in the literature list to check whether the information is correct and whether you agree with the interpretation?

(Boekhorst, Kwast & Wevers, 2004, pp. 241-247).