IDS 101: Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation: Evaluating Resources

The next time you’re appalled at some social media post, take a moment to do a little digging. Remember to check for biases.

Here are some more tips to consider when evaluating resources:

• Be skeptical and cautious about new sources of information and their origins. 
• Tildes (/~jsmith) and percent signs (/%jsmith) followed by personal names usually indicate personal sites within an organization.
• The homepage might provide additional useful information. Shorten the URL to find the homepage.
  https://hyperreal.org/~mpesce/ctnsinterview.html   -->   https://hyperreal.org
• Is there a parent website? Who funds the website?
• Search for the co-authors or the organization listed in the paper to see what others have said about them. This will provide a broader sense of an author's or organization's reputation and background.
• Domains do not determine reliability
  • Most domains such as commercial sites (.com), organizations (.org), etc. can be bought by anyone. Many hate and disinformation groups utilize the .org domain to appear more legitimate, but their information is biased and inaccurate. At the same time, reliable sources such as the five U.S. major dailies use the .com domain: NYT, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Washington Post.
  • Educational (.edu) or governmental sites (.gov) tend to provide more objective information.

How we view the world is based on the information that we encounter.  We all use the Internet to gather information for all sorts of different reasons such as medical, financial, political, etc. and it is crucial to evaluate the information that we find. 

Evaluating information is also important for your assignments; it will help you decide what is reliable, strengthen your arguments, and perhaps earn you a better grade.  But what are some good strategies for evaluating information?  A great place to start is to ask these four main questions: 

1. WHO WROTE IT?

Knowing about the author will help you to analyze the information that you've found, and use it more effectively.

• Is the author an expert on this topic?
• Are credentials provided to demonstrate expertise or knowledge of the subject?
• What can you gather about the author’s background?
• Is the author affiliated with any institutions or organizations?
• Is the publisher well established and reputable?
• Is there any contact information provided about the author or publisher?

2. MOTIVATION AND BIAS

When you know about potential motivations or biases associated with a resource, ask how these might affect the information that you're viewing.

• Is the information source supported by a group, organization or company? And what kind of reputation do each have?
• What does the author or group stand to gain by convincing others of its points?
• Is the author very opinionated, biased or neutral on the topic?
• Is the information likely to have been reviewed by others before being published?
• Who is the intended audience?

3. EVIDENCE AND RELIABILITY

Ask what sort of evidence the author provides for the points that he or she is trying to make.  The more verifiable evidence that a resource uses, the more likely that the information is accurate.

• Does the resource indicate where they get their information from, such as a list of citations? 
• Does it rely on evidence from different and multiple sources or just a couple?
• Is first-hand research included?  If so, what sources or methods did the author use to gather the information or data? And were the methods accurate and dependable?
• Is it refereed/peer-reviewed or did just a staff editor review it? (Peer-review means a scholar or researcher in the related field has reviewed it before publication.)
• Is it cited by other researchers? (Check this by using Scopus, Google Scholar, or some other citation resource). 
• Is the text well-written, or does it contain grammatical, spelling or typographical errors?
• Is it written in the language of the discipline or for a general audience?
• Are links to other resources current or broken? And are pages finished or still under construction?

4. TIMELINESS

People view different topics differently and talk about them in different ways at different times.  Make sure that the resource you're viewing is either up-to-date or published at a time that is relevant to the topic that you're studying.

• Are the facts, such as statistics, current to your topic?  Are they out-of-date? 
• Is there a historical perspective that would be beneficial from using older facts?