Chemistry: Evaluate

If using library resources such as books or journal, magazine and newspaper articles:

• Does the content fall within the scope of your research?
• Is the content at the appropriate level of scholarship?
• Does the material have a bias?
• Is the publication date appropriate or is it too old?

If your instructor allows you to use the Internet for research, you are responsible for evaluating the web site thoroughly. Some questions to ask are:

• Who is the author?
• How current is it?
• What is the domain (.edu, .org, .gov, .com)?
• What is its purpose? How accurate is the information?
• How appropriate is the information?

Please remember: Most scholarly, peer-reviewed journals are not available freely on the web. You will want to use one of the library’s databases to identify journal articles.