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Choosing the right sources: How do you distinguish between good and bad sources?

This guide is intended for anyone wanting a bit of advice on how to choose the right sources for their studies, and be able to identify good quality academic sources from not so good sources.

How do you distinguish between good and bad sources?

Looking for relevant sources for your studies can be difficult at times, but how do you know if the ones you find are good quality sources that should be used?

The sources available through Library Search are from reputable databases and providers that we have checked first before making them available for you to access, so they are good quality sources.

However, looking in other places like Google may require you to have a think about whether they are good enough to use in your studies, this is what is known as critical evaluation, and we have created interactive videos of two of those methods, the SIFT test and the CRAAP test.

Each video will introduce the test, what it entails, and demonstrates how to use it when evaluating sources -