Teens > Checking Your Sources

Just because infor­ma­tion is avail­able via the inter­net and in print sources does­n’t mean that it is actu­al­ly accu­rate or good research. When writ­ing a research paper, it is very impor­tant to crit­i­cal­ly eval­u­ate your search results.

What influ­ences the way an author writes? remem­ber to con­sid­er Point of View, and the dif­fer­ences between first and sec­ond­hand accounts. 

How do you know if you’ve found good’ info? Think Curren­cy, Rele­vance, Author­i­ty, Accu­ra­cy, and Purpose.

Source, Motive, Author­i­ty, Review, Two-Source Test –the SMART check is an excel­lent way eval­u­ate news stories.