Ask these questions of each source:

• Who says?
• How do they know?
• Could they be wrong?
• Could there be another explanation?

For best results: you want to do this for all of the sources you find for your research. Even the resources you find in the library databases.

Academic or scholarly sources

Sources written for academics by academics to keep each other updated about a particular field. Academics as a group are considered to provide reliable sources because they are:

• Trained to discover the truth
• Required to show the methods they use
• Published only after a peer-reviewed process
• Encouraged to prove or disprove each-others’ findings

Tip: you should still do some research on your academic sources to double-check that the article in question was not been disproven.

How to find Academic Journals & Books

In OneSearch use the left-side limiters to select "Academic Journals" or "Books" or "e-Books".

Reliable sources

A reliable source tries to be as truthful as possible. A reliable source will tend to:

• Have a reputation for telling the truth
• The method for gathering information is known & valid
• Other people have double-checked for errors
• Other people have corroborated the information using other methods

Tip: Check out an 'About Us' page of any source you encounter. Reliable sources should be transparent about who they are, what their methods for information gathering are, and how they try to avoid errors or bias.

Bad sources

A bad source is one that is explicitly trying to misinform. A bad source will:

• Have a reputation for being misleading or biased
• Use methods that are known to confuse people
• Don’t have anyone double-check their information
• Present information that other reliable sources have found to be false

Tip: see what other sources have fact-checked your source. Some fact-checkers:

AllSides

Sunlight Foundation

Politifact

Questionable sources

Questionable sources are where the answer to any of the above questions is not provided or obscure. With a questionable source it may be unclear:

• Who the author really is
• What methods for gathering information were used
• What kind of editing process the information went through, if any
• Whether anyone ever tried to find another explanation

Tip: If you can't find a straight answer and a source appears questionable, don't use it.