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SOC 11 Families & Society

Review & Evaluate Your Sources

Review and Evaluate Your Sources

  • Who is the author?  What is the journal called?
  • What evidence do they cite?
  • What questions does this article raise or answer for you?

Start Your Literature Review

Evaluating

Evaluate

You can evaluate any source using the 5 W's:

  • Who: ...wrote it? Are they an expert?
  • What: ...is the purpose of this resource?
  • Where: ...was this information published? ...does the information come from?
  • When: ...was this published or last updated?
  • Why: ...is this resource useful? ...is this resource better than other ones?

Many college assignments require you to use peer reviewed articles, also known as scholarly or academic articles.  This video from NCSU Library explains what peer review means.

Scholarly articles -- also called peer reviewed or academic articles -- follow a very specific format. 

Anatomy of a Scholarly Article