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FYS 100-19: Is College Worth It?: Step 4 - Reading and Evaluating

A collection of resources and tips for FYS 100-19

SIFT (The Four Moves)

Learning how to discern whether a source is credible and appropriate for your current needs is an essential part of the research process, and applies as equally to your career and personal life as it does academic work.  The SIFT method gives you a four-step methodology to discern whether a source is credible, help you find the most credible form of that information, and do it all in a way that makes the most efficient use of your time.

Additional SIFT Resources

  • The first step is the simplest.  Before reading the article or sharing the video, stop and ask yourself, "Do I know this website? Do I know this information source? Do I know it's reputation?" Before moving forward, use the other three moves to evaluate the source.
  • If you every feel yourself getting overwhelmed evaluating a source or going off on tangents, stop and pause to remember the purpose behind your search.  If you just reading for fun or to get ideas to take to scholarly databases, then verifying the reputation of the publication is enough.  If you are using this as an essential source to support your argument, it may be worth your time to verify key claims.
  • Know what you're reading before you read it.  Use Google or Wikipedia to investigate the reputation of news organizations or unfamiliar groups.
  • Taking a minute to figure out where the information is from before reading will help you decide if it's worth your time.  If it is, it also helps you better understand its significance and trustworthiness.
  • Sometimes the particular article or video isn't what you care about, but rather the claim that the is making.  The best strategy might be to ignore the source that you originally found and look for outside and trusted reporting on that claim.
  • You are looking for the most credible source on the topic.  You may also wish to scan multiple sources to see what the expert consensus is.
  • Consult some fact-checking websites to determine the veracity of a claim
  • Be sure to follow links to their source to check the original context.  Was the claim, quote, or media fairly represented?
  • Open up the original reporting sources listed in a bibliography if present to verify they are not being taken out of context
  • Do a reverse image search to find out where an image might have originated

Reading Sources

The following guidelines can help you parse articles more quickly and find the information you need more efficiently.

  1. Identify why you are reading this article
    You want to have an idea of how this source might fit into your research so you know what to look out for. 
  2. Read the title and abstract
    This is the first step towards discerning the author’s main points.
  3. Read the conclusion
    At this point, you should be able to judge whether the article is a relevant source or not.
  4. Go through the article and read the section headings
    This will give you an idea of the paper’s structure and what to expect.
  5. Using what you learned from the abstract, introduction, and conclusion, go through the article looking for key propositions (statements that the author believes to be true)
    Key propositions form the skeleton of the author’s arguments.  By focusing on them as you go through the text, you can get to the heart of what the author’s key arguments.
  6. Reread the conclusion
    Now that you understand the greater context of the article, how does the conclusion connect to the other parts of the article that support it? Have you gained any other insights or understandings from reading the conclusion a second time?  Those might be elements that are important for your own research.
  7. Scan the bibliography
    Finally, scan the titles listed in the bibliography.  Now that you have a sense of important concepts and keywords, some articles might jump out at you as good sources.

You may be wondering what your professor means when they are talking about scholarly sources or popular sources.  Popular sources are written to inform or entertain a wide general audience and are more informal in tone and scope, while scholarly sources are written by experts in their field and have gone through the peer review process.  The most important difference between the two is the levels of evidence they provide, with scholarly sources providing the best evidence through high-quality citations and the peer review process.

  Scholarly Popular
Contents Research projects, methodologies, and theories News and general interest articles
Audience Specialized General
Authors Subject experts Journalists and generalists
Topics Highly focused and aimed towards researchers and experts More general and aimed towards nonexperts
References Bibliographies and citations Embedded links with no bibliographies
Review Process Usually peer reviewed Edited but not peer reviewed
Examples Journal of Food Science, Journal of Strength and Conditioning, Journal of Applied Psychology, Annals of Human Genetics New York Times, Sports Illustrated, New Scientist, Psychology Today

 

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Other Evaluation Methods

Combine the SIFT method with one of the following evaluation rubrics to help figure out if your source is credible and relevant.

RADAR Method
Rationale, Authority, Date, Accuracy, Relevance

CRAAP Test
Currency, Relevancy, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose

5Ws
Who, What, When, Where, Why