Evaluating Information
Welcome to this Lib Guide explaining the importance of evaluating information.
When you are given an assignment, there will always be a requirement for you to draw upon a wide variety of good quality information to fulfil the brief. Those information sources need to be of sufficient academic standard and be both credible and evidence based. This is so you can make strong arguments in your assignment and therefore get the very best marks.
Outside of the academic environment, there is the growing issues of Fake News, Deepfake videos and misinformation spread via social media and the internet. Being able to sort out facts from fiction – to evaluate the information you are confronted with – will be an invaluable life skill to take forward when you leave UEL and start your future career.
See also The Power of Words, a collection of resources put together by the Library Team to help you navigate information evaluation.
This video explains the importance of looking more closely at the information we are exposed to in everyday life.
There are various established ways of checking sources of information you wish to use in your assignment. Below is the CRAAP test which was devised by Sarah Blakeslee at the University of California’s Meriam Library. Use these criteria as a broad basis for analysing information sources you find in your research.
C – Currency – Is the information current or out of date?
R – Relevance – Is the information suitable for your topic and academic level?
A – Authority – Who is the author/creator/website owner?
A – Accuracy – Reliability of the info / is it verified by other sources?
P – Purpose – For what reason was the info created?
See the tabs for advice on evaluating specific types of information sources.
If the book appears on the reading list for your module, then it has been handpicked by your lecturer and should be considered a good source. As with all your modules, however, you should read more widely around your subject and you should find other books to provide more information. When deciding which books to choose, you should ask yourself some key questions:
Q - When was it written? Older books may well contain out-of-date theories or studies.
Q - Is it academic quality or aimed at a younger audience? You should look for academic texts and those published by universities (e.g. Cambridge or Oxford) in addition to well-known textbook publishers such as Sage, Wiley, Cengage or Pearson.
Q – Is the author an academic or an expert working in the field? Look at their biography to find out more about them and/or a list of their other authored titles.
Q – Is the book relevant to your project/assignment? Does it add to your argument or provide an alternative view? Both of which may be valuable to include in your work.
To get the most up-to-date research in a particular field, you should try to find journal articles on your subject to back up your arguments and supplement your assignment/project with real-world examples. Try to use only peer reviewed* journal articles to ensure you are referring to the very best quality research.
*Peer-reviewed means the article has been checked by a panel of experts and academics for good quality in areas such as methodology, obvious bias, originality, and writing.
But aside from checking if it has been peer-reviewed, what other questions should you ask?
Q – Has the article been cited many times by other authors? This is a general indication of quality if the article has been used by lots of other academics in their work. However, be careful as newer articles will automatically have fewer citations than work that has been around for a few years. Also, sometimes an article is extremely controversial, and many academics refer to it to show that view, rather than because they think it is a good example of research.
Q – Is the author an academic or expert? Look for their qualifications in the author's biography. Have they written more on this subject?
Q - Was the article published recently? For some subject areas, the currency of the article will not matter so much but for the latest thinking and research in an area, you should be looking for articles published in the last few months to 5 years.
Academic databases, especially those found in UEL’s resources list, are large, online collections of quality information such as journal articles, case studies, company reports, images, business information and much more. Many databases have a filter button to allow you to see only peer reviewed articles in your results.
There are still a couple of questions to ask yourself:
Q - Is it appropriate for my subject area? Choose a database that specialises in your subject area, e.g. Westlaw or Lexis for law research.
Q – Can I filter for dates? You should aim to look for the latest published information.
News media sources, whether online or in print, often have affiliations to political, business or economic groups. News articles are written to inform the reader but will often include some obvious (or less obvious) bias in the way the news is presented. For example, if there is a news story about tax rises, a newspaper/source that supports the government might report that it will mean more money for public services. However, a newspaper/source from the other side of the political spectrum might report the tax rise as a story of forthcoming financial hardship for people.
Watch this short video to help you spot media bias.
The links below can help you sort through the various news media sources you might encounter and show you where they are on the political spectrum:
Use this link to check a source you have found for bias:
UEL has access to some great news sources:
Lexis+ – Go to the Newspapers section and find access to all UK newspapers from the present day and going back more than 30 years.
ProQuest One Business – Go to the Publications tab and get access to big name global newspapers such as the Washington Post, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and many more.
Financial Times - Sign up for a premium FT account with your UEL email address to see the latest financial, economic and political news from around the world.
See also Fake News.
Websites can be a useful source, but you should be wary of accepting the information you find there without digging deeper. Many of the same questions that you ask of books and articles apply here too, for instance, looking at who created it or when it was published/last updated. A good place to start is the ‘About’ section.
However, there are some things that are specific to websites, such as suffixes. See the information below to see what the suffix can tell you about the website:
.co.uk or .com - these are commercial sites and have a sales/marketing function above everything else.
.org - this indicates it was produced by a non-profit organisation but remember, anyone can produce a website with a .org suffix, so remember to do your other checks as well.
.gov - this website was created by a government department or agency.
.ac.uk - this is an educational institution based in the UK, for instance a university.
.edu - this is an educational institution in the USA.
.nhs - these sites were authored by the National Health Service of the UK.
.net - this is from a network provider.
.io - this is frequently used by technology companies and startups.
Trying to get accurate and reliable information from social media can prove extremely difficult. If possible, try to use other sources for information that you want to be trustworthy. However, it may be relevant to your research to look on social media so please bear these questions in mind when deciding to use the information:
Q – What do you know about the account holder? Are they well known in the subject field? Do they have any obvious bias?
Q – What is their network like? Who follows them and are there many of them? Who do they follow? This may give an indication on their expertise and who well thought of they are.
Q – How long has the account been operating? Was it set up recently to attack another user’s opinions?
In addition to the questions above, you should also be wary of ‘verified’ social media accounts.
‘Verified’ social media accounts can mean different things depending on which platform you are using:
X (previously Twitter)
Before 2023, a blue tick on Twitter (now X) meant the account holder had been verified, i.e. they were who they said they were. However, since April 2023, that verification system was phased out and now a blue tick means that the account holder is a premium subscriber, not the same as being ‘verified’ at all as anyone can pay the fee and sign up. This makes it more difficult to ascertain if the information the account is posting is correct.
X has also taken steps to limit some links shared on the platform if potentially malicious, spam, abusive or ‘misleading’, though this process can be flawed as many still make it through.
Facebook and Instagram (Meta)
According to their process, to be verified on the above platforms, the account must be complete (including bio, picture, at least one post) and notable, i.e. featured in multiple news stories (not paid content). The application is then considered and if approved by Meta, it gets verified status on the platform.
TikTok
A blue tick next to an account means that the holder is who they say they are and not a parody or fan account, and this has been checked by the platform via an application process. This is what a blue tick used to mean on X, so don’t get them mixed up! However, the use of AI generated content is rampant on the platform and should (in theory) be identified with a ‘content credentials’ watermark.
Images should be treated as any other source you find and should be scrutinised for accuracy and reliability. With many AI-generated images appearing on social media and the internet, it is important to have the tools to assess whether you can trust the image you have found.
Consider these questions:
Q – Where did you find the image? Was it via a source that can be trusted? (see Websites)
Q – Are there any mistakes in the image? For example, blurred areas, distortions, or pixelations may indicate AI generation or poor quality in general.
Q – Who produced the image? Are they a professional photographer/artist/etc.? Do they have an ‘About’ page where you can read more about them?
Q – Are there any copyright restrictions on re-using the image?
It may also be possible to check if the image has appeared elsewhere on the internet before:
Tineye - Reverse image search to find where the original was first posted.
Watch this video to learn how to do a reverse image search in Google:
Company documents are produced by organisations to show their yearly performance. They can include trading statements, press releases, annual reports, and AGM presentations. They are almost always produced by the company themselves and therefore should be treated as biased to some degree. The information should be factually correct; however, they are trying to show their best face to their shareholders and customers and may highlight successes over failures.
UEL has access to some fantastic company information through our business databases such as Financial Times and ProQuest One Business. Information from these sources can always be relied upon to be both useful and presented without bias.
With YouTube videos, or those hosted on similar sites, you need to do many of the same checks that you use for websites and social media. You will need to verify the contents of the video with other trusted sources before you can rely on it, creating more work but ultimately, helping you to avoid mistakenly using something that is easily discredited. Start with these questions:
Q – What do you know about the content creator? Are they an expert in the subject field? Do they have any obvious bias?
Q – What was the context in which the video was created? Was it commissioned by an organisation or commercial company? Or is it a personal opinion?
Q – Can the information be verified by trusted sources? For example, can you trace the source of any statistics used?