How to Evaluate Sources

Evaluating the Author(s) of a Scholarly or Professional Journal Article

Whenever you use a source in your research writing project, it's important that you know its author or authors. Again, we'll follow the progress of Anthony Gomez as he evaluates an article from the the scholarly journal Language and Learning Across the Disciplines for use in his research project on service learning programs in colleges. The article is available as an Acrobat document.

Most scholarly or professional journal articles contain a short biographical note about the author of an article. As you can see below, the Language and Learning Across the Disciplines article we are using for this demonstration contains notes about all four of its authors.

From it we can see that all four authors are associated with the UC Links Program, which is the service learning program discussed in the article, and each author's professional credentials are listed as well, which give them credibility.

If these biographical notes had not been included, or if you're uncertain about an author's affiliations and would like to learn more about them, you might consider searching for each author on the Web. An increasing number of authors have created home pages on which they list information about themselves, such as their educational background, professional experience, and interests.

Don't forget that every author holds opinions that affect his or her discussion of an issue, opinions that you as a reader must try to recognize and understand. These opinions reflect an author's bias, or preference for a particular side of an issue. As you evaluate a scholarly or professional journal article, consider whether its author's bias affects the presentation of information and opinions in a source. Ask whether this bias has resulted in a source that treats one side of an issue more favorably than another. To explore for bias, ask where the author is coming from. Where are his or her allegiances? Is the bias hidden or stated? Do you need to look for a balancing viewpoint or approach?

As you can see below, Anthony noticed that the authors of the Language and Learning Across the Disciplines article were biased toward long-term service learning programs. Because he was comparing the benefits to the drawbacks of service learning programs in general, he realized that he might need another source that also explored short-term service learning programs so he could present balanced viewpoints in his project.

Click on the Continue button to view a demonstration of evaluating the publisher of the article.