Evaluating Believability

Once you establish that the information is sufficiently useful, you need to determine whether the information is believable. This requires assessing whether the information comes from a credible, objective source, is well supported, and sufficiently comprehensive.

Evaluating the credibility of an information source can be tricky in many cases and relatively straightforward in others. For example, more formal publications, such as peer-reviewed journals, often include short author biographies, which can be helpful in assessing credibility. Often a quick search of the author can further help you evaluate credibility. If the author has written widely on the topic in reputable sources, s/he probably has sufficient expertise to merit using the information. In some cases, however, it is almost impossible to determine who wrote the information. We would be reluctant to trust information from such sources, unless it is provided by an organization with a solid reputation. If the information is provided by a ....