STEM Camp: Evaluating Information

Whenever you conduct research for any course the information you find should be evaluated for:

• Currency (is the information up to date?)
• Relevancy (is the information relevant to your topic/subject/assignment?)
• Authority (is the author identified and have the proper credentials to make such claims?)
• Bias (does the author/organization/publication have a stake in providing only one side of an argument?)

The information in this LibGuide has been evaluated for these criteria and are more scholarly than what you might find in a simple Google search. However, you should always evaluate the information you use in any assignment.

Scholarly articles are:

in-depth |  written by experts |   validated with technical language, abstracts, literature reviews, methodologies, tables, graphs, and conclusions |  reviewed by experts | given a bibliography

What is Original Research?

Original research is considered a primary source.

An article is considered original research if...

• it is the report of a study written by the researchers who actually did the study.
• the researchers describe their hypothesis or research question and the purpose of the study.
• the researchers detail their research methods.
• the results of the research are reported.
• the researchers interpret their results and discuss possible implications.

Other terms used in original research: evidence based practice, case study, quantitative/qualitative study, research-based, findings, performance-based, empirical evidence