You can often locate dozens or even hundreds of potential sources for your topic—far more than you will have time to read. Your challenge will be to determine what kinds of sources you need to answer your research questions and to zero in on a reasonable number of quality sources. This kind of decision making is referred to as evaluating sources. When you evaluate a source, you make a judgment about how useful the source is to your project.

Evaluating sources isn’t something you do in one sitting. After you do some planning, searching, and reading, for example, you may reflect on the information you have collected and conclude that you need to rethink your research question—and so you return to assessing the kinds of sources you need. You may be midway through drafting your paper when you begin to question a particular source’s credibility, at which point you return to searching and reading.

The following questions may help you evaluate sources at each stage of your project.

Evaluate as you plan

Evaluate as you search

Evaluate as you read

Evaluate as you write