Why Evaluate?

Evaluating information encourages you to think critically about the reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness, point of view or bias of information sources.

Just because a book, article, or website matches your search criteria and thus seems, at face value, to be relevant to your research, does not mean that it is necessarily a reliable source of information.

It is important to remember that sources of information comprising the Library's print and electronic collections have already been evaluated for inclusion among the Library's resources. However, this does not necessarily mean that these sources are relevant to your research.

 

Common Types of Information 

 

Popular Sources

Straight news/Hard news: Stories that report only the most essential information in a concise and impartial manner are referred to as straight or hard news stories. This type of story typically follows the inverted pyramid style, which organizes information by descending order of importance or places the most newsworthy information at the beginning of the article. 

 

Features: The primary difference between a feature story and a straight news story is the style. A feature article is more in-depth than a traditional hard news article and uses the types of storytelling devices and details that you might find in novels. Feature stories do not focus merely on the basic facts. Writers typically have more flexibility to use a wider range of formats, provide rich descriptions, and include scene-setting anecdotes. Features often are given more space on the page and are accompanied by pictures, illustrations, graphics, maps, and other visual components. 

 

Editorial/Opinion: Although journalistic ethical standards call for general news writing to be objective in content and tone, newswriters also have the opportunity to communicate personal points of view about current events and topics. The editorial is a type of news story used to develop an argument about an issue and even sway readers’ opinions. The essay also represents the official view of an editorial board that determines what views to share after some kind of deliberative process.

 

Encyclopedia article: an article in a book or an electronic database that gives general knowledge on a range of topics. There is no hard/straight news and no opinion or editorial aspect, but instead may provide a definition or background information on a topic. 

 

Blog post: an edition of someone's blog. A blog is a regular record of someone's thoughts, opinions, or experiences put on the internet for people to read. It may or may not contain opinions or facts, or both.

 

Press release: an announcement of something that is newsworthy in the most objective way possible.  The whole purpose of a press release is to get coverage and get noticed by a target audience.

 

Scholarly Sources

 

Original research: These are detailed studies reporting original research and are classified as primary literature. They include hypothesis, background study, methods, results, interpretation of findings, and a discussion of possible implications. 

 

Review article: Review articles provide a critical and constructive analysis of existing published literature in a field, through summary, analysis, and comparison, often identifying specific gaps or problems and providing recommendations for future research. These are considered as secondary literature since they generally do not present new data from the author's experimental work. 

 

Clinical case study: Clinical case studies present the details of real patient cases from medical or clinical practice. The cases presented are usually those that contribute significantly to the existing knowledge on the field. The study is expected to discuss the signs, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of a disease.These are considered primary literature and usually have a word count similar to that of an original article. Clinical case studies require a lot of practical experience and may not be a suitable publication format for early career researchers.

 

Clinical trial: Once again, specific to the field of medicine, clinical trials describe the methodology, implementation, and results of controlled studies, usually undertaken with large patient groups.Clinical trial articles are also long, usually of about the same length as an original research article. Clinical trials also require practical work experience, as well as, high standards of ethics and reliability. 

 

Perspective, opinion, and commentary: Perspective pieces are scholarly reviews of fundamental concepts or prevalent ideas in a field. These are usually essays that present a personal point of view critiquing widespread notions pertaining to a field. A perspective piece can be a review of a single concept or a few related concepts. These are considered as secondary literature and are usually short articles, around 2000 words.

 

Book review: Book reviews are published in most academic journals. The aim of a book review is to provide insight and opinion on recently published scholarly books. Book reviews are also relatively short articles and less time-consuming. Book reviews are a good publication option for early-career researchers as it allows the researcher to stay abreast of new literature in the field, while at the same time, adding to his publication list.