Evaluating Sources

How do you determine the relevancy of materials you find on the Web? The following points provide a common sense approach to evaluating Web sources:

• does the electronic document have a corollary in the print media?
• has the author published other materials in the print media?
• is the material corroborated in other media?
• does the author provide citations or hypertext links to source material?
• is the source primary or secondary?
• what is the date of publication or last revised date?
• what is the author’s bias?
• is the material reviewed elsewhere?
• is the author recognized as an authority?