Doing research to find resources for your paper will take time. While it is tempting to use only the first few resources you find, they may not necessarily be the best resources for your purposes, so it is important to evaluate the resources as you find them. Doing this will help you to determine whether or not you need to find more resources, or if you can stop searching and move on to the next stage of the writing process.
Reading abstracts is a quick way to determine the quality or usefulness of a resource. Most databases you search will provide abstracts along with the title of the work, the author(s), and the publisher.
The four main points you want to think about when evaluating an article are:
Finding sources appropriate for academic research requires time and critical thought.
Here are some questions to think about (or ask yourself) when evaluating a resource you might use for your research project or essay.
Special thanks to Bucknell University, Bertrand Library Research Services for creating and sharing this poster under a Creative Commons License.