English

Third & Fourth Lectures

 Evaluating sources for
relevance and reliability
 Criteria for Evaluating your
resources:
When you start looking for sources, you’ll
find more than you can use, so you must
quickly evaluate their usefulness. To do
so use two criteria: relevance and
reliability.
1- Evaluating Sources for Relevance.
If your source is a book, do this:

- Skim its index for your keywords, then

skim the pages on which those words
occur.

- Skim the first and last paragraphs in

chapters that use a lot of your
keywords.
- Skim prologues, introductions,
summary chapters, and so on.

- Skim the last chapter, especially the

first and last two or three pages.

- If the source is a collection of articles,

skim the editor’s introduction.

- Check the bibliography for titles relevant

to your topic.
 - If your source is an e- book, you
should still follow these steps, but you
can also search the whole text for your
keywords.
 If your source is an article, do this:

- Read the abstract, if it has one.

- Skim the introduction and conclusion;

or if they are not marked off by headings,
skim the first six or seven paragraphs and
the last four or five.
- Skim for section headings, and read the
first and last paragraphs of those
sections.

- Check the bibliography for titles

relevant to your topic.
 If your source is online, do this:

- If it looks like a printed article, follow

the steps for a journal article, and also
search on your keywords.

- Skim sections labeled “introduction,”

“overview,” “summary,” or the like. If
there are none, look for a link labeled
“About the Site” or something similar.
- If the site has a link labeled “Site Map”
or “Index,” check it for your keywords
and skim the referenced pages.

- If the site has a “search” resource, type

in your keywords.
This kind of speedy reading can guide your
own writing and revision.

- If you do not structure your paper so

your readers can skim it quickly and see
the outlines of your argument, your paper
has a problem.
 Evaluating Sources for Reliability
- You can’t judge a source until you read it,
but there are signs of its reliability:

1- Is the source published or posted

online by a reputable press?

- Most university presses are reliable,

especially if you recognize the name of the
university.
1- Is the source published or posted
online by a reputable press?

- Some commercial presses, which are

presses not associated with a university,
are reliable in some fields, such as
Norton in literature, Ablex in sciences, or
West in law.
- Be skeptical of a commercial book that
makes sensational claims, even if its
author has a PhD after his name.

- Be especially careful about sources on

hotly contested social issues such as
stem- cell five research, gun control, and
global warming.
 2- Was the book or article peer-
reviewed?
- Most reputable presses and journals ask
experts to review a book or article before it
is published; this is called peer review.
- Essay collections published by university
presses are often but not always peer-
reviewed; sometimes they are reviewed
only by the named editor or editors.
- Few commercial magazines use peer
review. If a publication hasn’t been peer-
reviewed, be suspicious.
 3- Is the author a reputable scholar?

- This is hard to answer if you are new to a

field. Most publications cite an author’s
academic credentials; you can find more
with a search engine.

- Most established scholars are reliable, but

be cautious if the topic is a contested social
issue such as gun control or abortion.
- Even reputable scholars can have axes
to grind, especially if their research is
financially supported by a special
interest group.

- Go online to check out anyone an

author thanks for support, including
foundations that supported her work.
4- If the source is available only online, is
it sponsored by a reputable organization?

- A website is only as reliable as its sponsor.

- You can usually trust one that is sponsored
and maintained by a reputable
organization.

- But if the site has not been updated

recently, it may have been abandoned and
may no longer be endorsed by its sponsor.
- Some sites supported by individuals
are reliable; most are not.

- Do a web search for the name of the

sponsor to find out more about it.
 5- Is the source current?
- You must use up- to- date sources, but
what counts as current depends on the
field.

- In computer science, a journal article

can be out- of- date in months; in the
social sciences, ten years pushes the
limit.
- Publications have a longer shelf life in
the humanities: literary or art criticism,
for example, can remain relevant for
decades and even centuries.
- In general, a source that sets out a
major position or theory that other
researchers accept will stay current
longer than those that respond From
to or develop it
- Assume that most textbooks are
not current.

- If you are unsure whether a

source will be considered
current, take your lead from the
practice of established
researchers in the field.
-Look at the dates of articles in the
works cited lists of a few recent
books or articles in the field:
a good rule of thumb is that you can
cite works as old as the older ones in
that list (but to be safe, perhaps not
as old as the oldest).
- Try to find a standard edition of primary
works such as novels, plays, letters, and
so on: it is usually not the most recent.

- Be sure that you consult the most

recent edition of a secondary or tertiary
source: researchers often change their
views, even rejecting ones they espoused
in earlier editions.
 6- If the source is a book, does it
have notes and a bibliography?

- If not, be suspicious, because you

have no way to follow up on
anything that the source claims.
 7- If the source is a website, does
it include bibliographical data?

- You cannot judge the reliability of a site

that does not indicate who sponsors and
maintains it, who wrote what’s posted
there, and when it was posted or last
updated.
 8- If the source is a website, does it
approach its topic judiciously?

- Your readers are unlikely to trust a site

that engages in heated advocacy,
attacks those who disagree, makes wild
claims, uses abusive language, or makes
errors of spelling, punctuation, and
grammar.
- The following criteria are particularly
important for advanced students:
 9-If the source is a book, has
it been well reviewed?

- Many fields have indexes to published

reviews that tell you how others evaluate a
source.
10- Has the source been frequently cited
by others?
-You can roughly estimate how influential a
source is by how often others cite it.
Citation indexing makes this easy to do.
- If you find that a source is cited
repeatedly by other scholars, you can
infer that experts in the field regard it as
reliable and significant. Such sources are
said to have a high “impact factor.”

- You should keep an eye out for such

sources and use them to orient yourself in
your field of research.
- These indicators do not guarantee
reliability.
- Reviewers sometimes recommend that
a reputable press publish something
weakly argued or with thin data because
other aspects of its argument are too
important to miss— we have each done
so.
- So don’t assume that you can
read uncritically just because a
report is written by a reputable
researcher and published by a
reputable press.
 Vocabulary:
-evaluate: assess
- criteria: standards
- relevance: connection
- reliability: being trustworthy
- skim: read quickly
- index: list of content
- Keywords: words with great significance
in a research
- prologues: separate introductory
sections in a book.
- labeled: named
- overview: general review
- site: website
- commercial: indented to make an a profit
- skeptical: have doubts or reservations
- sensational: shocking
- hotly contested social issues: debated
social topics. ‫متنازع أو مختلف عليها‬
- stem-cell: ‫الخاليا الجذعية‬
- ideology : a system of adopted ideas
- coverage: ‫تغطية‬
- editor : ‫محرر‬
- suspicious: doubtful/ unsure
- scholar : expert
- credentials: certificates
- search engine : ‫محرك بحث‬
- cautious: careful
- abortion: ‫إجهاض‬
- axes: points of view )‫محاور (فكرية‬
- Grind: crush ( and put) ‫يطحن‬
- financially: economically
- organization : institution
- maintained: kept
- abandoned : left
- current: up to date
- pushes the limit : ‫تتعدي الحد‬
- shelf life: ‫مدة الصالحية‬
- decades : periods of ten years
- centuries: periods of one hundred years
- sets out: spreads out
- Major position: essential situation
- assume: suppose
- take your lead from: ‫اقتدي ب‬
- theory: ‫نظرية‬
- The practice: ‫التطبيق‬
- established : well-known
- a good rule of thumb: a guideline
- espoused : accepted/supported
- editions : versions
- notes : brief written records of ideas
- heated advocacy: ‫دعوة متحمسة‬
- wild claims: accusing (someone) based on
very little or no evidence.
- abusive: insulting/rude
- reviewed: assessed
- roughly estimate : ‫تقدر تقريبا‬
- infer: deduce/ conclude ‫يستنتج‬
- Important factor: a measure of the
frequency with which an article in a
journal has been cited in a particular year.
- orient : adapted/ adjust
- recommend: suggest
- Write an essay about how a
researcher can evaluate sources
for relevance .

- Write an essay about how a

researcher can evaluate sources
for reliability.