Reference no: EM133278482

Part 1 - Internal evaluation

Choose one book or article that you have found in one of your previous assignments. Using the information you find within the source itself, answer the following questions.  Give specific examples where you can.

1. Authorship. What can you find on the page about the author and their affiliations or credentials? How does this support or prove their expertise in the topic being discussed. (If there are multiple authors, start with the first author.  If the author is not named, look at the publisher or agency that produced the source.)

2. Currency. How old is this source?  How old are the majority of sources in the bibliography? Is this a field for which information goes out of date quickly?  Why or why not?

3. Audience/Relevance.  Give some specific clues that help you identify the target audience for this book or article. Does this seem appropriate to a university level study or paper?

4. Purpose:  What is the author trying to do? Find a sentence within the book or article to quote that gives an idea of the objective for the author. Does this objective give you any reason to question this source or does it point you towards additional research?

5. Bias: Bias can be hard to spot, and there may not be a bias in every article.  Think about the topic, what is a potential bias that you might need to be on the look out for?

Part 2 - External Evaluation

Use external resources to find more information about one of the articles you found in a previous week.

1. Use Ulrichsweb to look up the journal title that the article appeared in. Screenshot the results of your search and explain them.  Is the article peer-reviewed or refereed?

2. Find the author in SCOPUS or Web of Science. What is their H-index number? How many previous papers have they published? Can you determine their greatest subject strengths?

Now look at one of the books that you have found in a previous week.

1. Use Discover on the library page OR google to find a review or commentary on the book (try searching "title" AND review.) Is it favorable?  Quote a sentence from the review that supports your answer

2. See if the author has a LinkedIn, a personal website, or a profile on the publisher's site. What can you tell about their expertise based on this source?

3. Is this evaluation practice likely to change how you choose sources for research? Why or why not?