Exercise  3        Thinking Critically about your Sources

1. Which of the following criteria are useful for evaluating books: (Choose two)
A. number of pages
B. credentials of the author
C. presence and number of color photos
D. documentation for the information
E. how you found the book

2. 'Authority' means:
A. the author has a PhD
B. the author is a person with an official decision making power
C. the information source is a well-known popular magazine, such as People magazine
D. the author has the education, experience and/or expertise to know what s/he is talking about

3. Consider each of the following criteria and decide whether each one typically applies to SCHOLARLY JOURNALS or POPULAR MAGAZINES:

• Articles are written by author(s) with academic credentials
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Articles are written by journalists
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Articles are written for the general public
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Articles are in-depth and often have a bibliography
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Publications have a lot of color photographs
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Publications have few, if any, advertisements
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Publications are typically published weekly
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Articles are approved by a panel of peer scholars
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
• Articles are written by multiple authors
          A. Scholarly B. Popular
  
  

4. Publishers of books or other sources that are considered reliable for college research include (Circle all that apply)

A. University presses such as the University of Chicago Press
B. Government agencies
C. Religious publishers
D. Popular commercial publishers such as TimeWarner Publishing
E. Professional associations, such as the American Philosophical Society


5. You are writing a paper on the migration of Africanized honeybees to the United States and you have found the following article: "Flight of the killer bees." U.S. News & World Report, 11/14/94, Vol. 117 Issue 19, p25. Would this be considered a scholarly journal article?
A. Yes
B. No

6. How can you tell you are looking at a popular magazine?
A. Articles are written for the general public
B. Articles are in-depth and often have a bibliography
C. Articles are usually shorter.
D. Issues have few, if any, advertisements
E. A and C
F. B and D

7. Some magazines contain in-depth articles which may be good sources for research papers.
A. True
B. False

8. Should the currency of information sources (i.e. when it was written or updated) be always a consideration in evaluating the source?
A. Yes
B. No
c. It depends on your topic of research


9. It is often important to determine how current or recent a source’s information is because
A. Old information is no good.
B. Recent developments may have changed the topic.
C. Newer sources are more likely to be truthful.
D. It's not. The publication date doesn't matter.

10. Objectivity means that an author writes from a personal perspective.
A. True
B. False