Scholarly sources (which appear primarily in peer-reviewed journals) and professional sources (which appear in trade journals) are written by professionals in a field for other professionals or students in that field. When considering the scholarly nature of your source, try these approaches.
- Consider the organization or source (for example, the New York Times or Stormfront) responsible for the content. Google the organization/individual/journal and see what the first few hits say about its reputability. Does the source describe itself as peer-reviewed or scholarly?
- Consider the author. What credentials does s/he have? Google the individual’s name to find out about their affiliations and educational background, if it's not given in the source itself.
- Is the information included in the article supported by evidence and citations/links? Do they appear to be high quality, or questionable? Check on the source of a couple of the citations, as well, using the same technique from question 2. It’s fairly easy to support bad science with more bad science, so citations alone don’t equal credibility.
- Do you detect biased or opinion-based language in the title or text? Sources which use emotionally loaded, insulting, or derogatory language must be questioned.
- Do you see a lot of advertisements, broken links, or inflammatory “clickbait” language? If so, the source is probably not scholarly or credible.
- Choose and verify a claim from the source. Can you verify its accuracy with a Google search? Do you see any hits in the first few which debunk the claim? Is the preponderance of evidence in agreement or in opposition to the claim made by your source?
