When conducting research, it is important to be conscious of both the credibility of the sources you find and your personal biases that prejudice you to prefer certain sources over others. Librarians at Penn State and Marshall University created the IF I APPLY model to help research keep both of these problems in mind when evaluating information.
IF I APPLY Source Evaluation Tool
Often we seek information that confirms our own thoughts and feelings towards a topic. This is not research. Research and learning comes from finding sources that speak to the truth of a topic, no matter how uncomfortable it is.
Only be keeping personal biases in check can you begin to vet information for credibility. These steps will help you find sources that are credible and reliable in your research process.
This model has two parts: "IF I", which focuses on a researcher's individual / personal biases, and "APPLY", which focuses on how to evaluate sources.
Identify emotions attached to topic: If you are taking the time to research a topic, you probably have opinions about it and are reluctant to seriously consider resources that diverge from your position. Recognizing what you feeling and how strongly you care about a topic will help you identify what biases you bring into the research process.
Find unbiased reference sources for proper review of topic: Even when your paper takes a strong, belligerent position on a topic, it behooves you as a researcher to also incorporate unbiased resources. Encyclopedias and other reference sources like Credo can be especially helpful for defining a topic.
Intellectual courage to seek authoritative voices on topic that may be outside of thesis: When conducting research, you will likely encounter experts and professional organizations that make claims that do not fully align with your paper's arguments. Some may contradict your thesis entirely. Rather than dismissing these sources, engaging with well-articulated opposing views can add nuance to your paper and show to your reader that you have considered myriad ideas when developing your thoughts.
Authority established. Does the author have education and experience in that field?: Not everyone who writes about a topic has the same level of expertise. While you should not automatically dismiss outside perspectives or the contributions of younger scholars, you should weigh such factors when determining the authoritativeness of a source.
Purpose/Point of view of source. Does the author have an agenda beyond education or information?: Consider why the author chose to write in the first place. Are they trying to persuade their reader? Do they have a personal stake in the topic that could effect their position (e.g., a toy saleswoman writing about the benefits of parents playing make-believe with their children)?
Publisher? Does the publisher have an agenda?: Take note of who publishes and funded a resource just like you would evaluate the resource's author. The writings of a historian published in a professional, peer-reviews journal may be of a different caliber than writings by the same historian published in a polemical magazine.
List of sources (bibliography): When evaluating a resource, try creating a "bibliography" of the people, books, and organizations that are quoted. Does the author incorporate ideas from different sources, or are they reliant on the claims of a single individual? Does the author name specific people and groups, or are sources' identities kept vague (e.g., "my contact", "some scientists")? Are there quotes of or links to these other sources of information, or is the author summarizing their words?
Year of publication: When was the source published? Older resources may not have had access to the same span of information that contemporary resources boast. Likewise, decades-old sources may employ theories and ideas out of step with current practices. You shouldn't immediately dismiss older sources-- sometimes their distance from contemporary resources can provide intriguing, contrasting perspectives-- but you should be mindful of their limitations when evaluating them.
Citation: Phillips, K., Roles, E., & Thomas, S. (2019). Navigating the Information Ecosystem: Getting Personal with Source Evaluation, IF I APPLY. In B. Steiz (Ed.) LOEX Annual Conference 2019. Minneapolis, MN. https://doi.org/10.26207/9z0c-7955
The search for information online often confronts researchers with lots of noise. To sieve out misleading sources, Mike Caulfield of the University of Washington Information School devised the SIFT method.
Before you begin to read in earnest, pause and ask whether you can trust the author, publisher, or website you are engaging with. If you feel uneasy, quarantine the source-- don't circulate it or use it in research-- until you have performed enough fact-checking to determine its veracity. Be especially cautious of sensational content, which is often designed to provoke a strong emotional response and bait engagement (positive or negative) from users in the forms of clicks, shares, or comments.
Find out who created the item you are examining. You needn't perform an exhaustive investigation. It can be enough to determine what expertise (if any) an author has and whether they have an agenda that could bias them. When investigating a source, don't rely solely on the information provided by the author or publisher's website. Read laterally, searching for details about the source on other, unaffiliated websites. To see what this looks like in practice, watch this short video below.
If you determine that a source is unreliable or otherwise lacking in quality-- or if you want to verify whether the claims advanced by the source are broadly supported or controversial-- you may want to see what other, better sources have said about your topic of interest. Indeed, do not feel like you have to "commit" to the first source you encounter on a topic. Watch the video below to learn more about how and why you should take the time to identify trustworthy sources.
Headlines and video clips commonly splice words or images out of their original context. Some sources will make an effort to explain in what circumstances an actor did something provocative or what political forces prompted a legislator to make a bold speech, but not all will be conscientious. Be sure to distinguish between original reporting and "re-reporting": original reporting documents events and the statements of those who witnessed them, while re-reporting takes that original documentation and repackages it for another outlet, not infrequently adding analysis or spin to the story. To learn more about these different types of reporters and how to follow a claim to its original source, view the video below.
Attribution: This section uses images and ideas taken from the book Introduction to College Research by Walter D. Butler; Aloha Sargent; and Kelsey Smith, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.