Evaluation
Methods
Believability (B, b, or -) Your initial reaction to an item
is often a good beginning to evaluating items. Don't forget, however, that
believability is a function not only of the authors' ability to create
believable documents, but also of the reader.
Authority (A, a, or -) Is the source of the information
a reliable authority? What evidence do you have of this? Are the names of the
authors listed? Are they authorities, or just journalists? You can check the
names in the appropriate bibliographic databases to see if the name is there
and, if it is, you can see what types of articles they have written to help
with this judgment
Evidence(E, e, or -) What
evidence does the piece contain that you can check to verify the facts? Are
other sources listed? If so, can you verify the information? Some pieces are
listed as "the New England Journal of Medicine says " but no author
or date or other information so that you can follow up. Is there a list of
references?
Support (S, s, or -) What support
exists for the writer's claims? Are you aware of contradictory information?
Logic (L, l, or -) Is the information logically
sound? Boe, Graubart, & Cappo (1995) report that this is often the most
difficult of all evaluation tasks. Be wary of the one or two case citation that
implies that it represents the whole.
Timeliness (T, t or -) A difficulty with sources on the
Internet is the lack of permanency of sources. Unlike print sources, which are
archived, Internet resources come and go. One should look for a date on
Internet sources and use that as part of the evaluation. Lack of a date should
be a red flag.
For sites that are exceptional in meeting a specific
criterion, an upper case (capital)
letter that corresponds to the first letter of the criterion was assigned.
Those sites that only partially meet a specific criterion should received a
lower case letter. For those sites that do not meet a specific criterion, a
dash was used to denote the absence of meeting a criterion.
Dr. Mary Curran at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte provided this evaluation method.
http://www.uncc.edu/macurran/macurran2/research/webliog.htm