EVALUATING SOURCES

Preparing a research paper becomes challenging when one is not sure about
what is right and what is wrong. Researchers, professional scholars and students
should understand that everything printed on a book or available on the internet
may not be right. The quality and reliability should be factors while choosing
points to be included in the paper. Sources which are subjective, biased, incorrect
or outdated, poor logic or limited thus pose a challenge in the trustworthiness of
a research paper. One should be intelligent enough to compare the knowledge
they acquire from various sources to their own idea regarding the subject. Three
factors should be given extreme importance – authority, accuracy and currency.
Authority refers to how the research scholar analyzes and discusses the topic
being studied. It can be either in the form of peer review or internet sources.
Peer review can be defined as a policy of consultant review where expert readers
and referees provide advice to the publisher as to publish the journal, academic
book publication. The consultants read the manuscript and provide the publisher
a detailed analysis of their study as report. Importance of subject, originality and
soundness of argument, accuracy of facts and currency of the research are
considered significant in such an analysis. Other than the reader’s reports, to
scrutinize it in a rigorous manner, publishers also rely on editorial boards which re
evaluate and review the manuscript, thus deciding whether to publish the work or
not.
Internet sources are often challenging to access as quality and reliability is not
much ensured. Print publications published by reputed publishers and university
press are accountable for the standard and trustworthiness but only a few
electronic sources practice this. There are publications which are peer reviewed
but most are self published without outside review thus making it prone to bias,
subjectivity and illogical additions.
In a quest for reliable sources one should concentrate on the author, text,
editorial policy and publishing or sponsoring organization of the particular
source. While using information from print or electronic source on research paper
one should note the author or the group responsible for publication. The
authoritativeness of the work should also be analyzed. Author’s credentials will be
included mostly as biographical information in print source and as a link to the
home page that gives information about the personnel responsible for the site.
Other sources like Book Review Index and Book Review Digest also gives us
reliable information about how experts and others in the field view the author
and his work. While working with historical documents or literary texts available
in various versions one should look for reliable editions. For example
Shakespeare’s plays published during his lifetime and after his death can have
great differences. The scholarly editor should be able to compare, analyze and
evaluate these versions producing a historically authoritative. Thus, while using an
electronic version of Shakespearean plays choose one that at least gives an idea
of the editor and the time when the electronic version was published or
information on the printed source that was the basis of the electronic version.
During analysis of the editorial policy one must try to find the purpose of the
manuscript and evidence that it has underwent consultant review as list of the
editorial board would suggest. One must analyze the entire work even while only
using a particular document within it. Examining publisher or sponsoring
organisation is not a hectic task when it comes to print publication as most of
them include name of the publisher along with that of the author. The same
should be the norm in sources from websites and should preferably provide
access to information about the organization. An element at the end of the
domain name of a particular website can give us idea about the organisation from
which the website derives. For example, a commercial enterprise includes .com at
the end of the domain like www.abcd.com, an educational institution will have
.edu, a government agency uses .gov or a non profitable organisation with .org.
This does not mean that all such sites are reliable as they might include
unsupervised personal pages as well as peer reviewed scholarly projects.
Understanding or analyzing the organisation would help the scholar to evaluate
potential usefulness or shortcomings as many sites might include helpful
information while others would be no more than mere advertisements.
 While examining the accuracy and verifiability of a scholarly material one
should always search for information regarding the sources the author has
referred to. This might be included towards the end of the work in a list called
works cited. The titles and sources explain the author’s knowledge of the subject
and possible subjectivity or bias. Web publications might even include hyper
textual links. At times e-mail address or contact information of the author or
sponsoring organisation is provided for further information or clarification.
Currency of the work ensures how relevant the information is at present and
whether it has been updated or not. Online sites have the ability to continually
update but many remain in the original state. This might thus provide outdated
information. While accessing a resource make sure at least one date is assigned to
it. Many electronic publications might include several dates which can be the
publication dates of their previous print version and electronic version. It can also
include the date at which it was last revised or updated. An ideal work or
document must include all dates of publication and revision. A close inspection or
survey of the publication dates of works cited will help one understand the
current importance of the scholarship.