Research Ready!: Identifying and Citing Reliable Sources

• What is a source?
  • Primary
  • Secondary
  • Tertiary
• Understanding Bias
• Peer Review 
• Seriously, Wikipedia 
• Plagiarism
• Well CRAAP 

  • The CRAAP test has 5 main components:

    • Currency: Is the source up-to-date?
    • Relevance: Is the source relevant to your research?
    • Authority: Where is the source published? Who is the author? Are they considered reputable and trustworthy in their field?
    • Accuracy: Is the source supported by evidence? Are the claims cited correctly?
    • Purpose: What was the motive behind publishing this source?

What sources can be considered as credible?

• materials published within last 10 years;
• research articles written by respected and well-known authors;
• websites registered by government and educational institutions (gov, edu, ac);
• academic databases (i.e. Academic Search Premier or JSTOR);
• materials from Google Scholar.

What sources should be avoided?

• out-of-date materials (published over 10 years ago);
• posts from social networks (i.e. facebook);
• blogs;
• research articles without citations;
• websites ending in .com, .org, .net etc.

NB! Wikipedia can never be considered as a reliable source of information since it can be edited by anyone (Therefore it is non-credible website example). However, it can be used when you are first trying to understand the topic. Moreover, there are lots of further links and references that can be useful when doing a research or writing academic papers.

• Why Cite?
  • Roadmap
  • Repeatability
  • Refutation
• Alphabet Soup
  • APA—social sciences, business, natural sciences, health sciences
  • MLA--humanities
• OWL&Scribbr