Route 3: Evaluating Information


 

 

learning outcome: ability to compare and evaluate information

 

 

Route 3 is a stage in the search process when you need to evaluate the quality, relevancy and currency of the information you have found.

Start at the top and work down the three InfoPaths that make up Route 3...

 


 

Available from this page is a collection of resources designed to help you with this stage. Feel free to look at them, download them and print them off - whatever suits you best.

 

Route 3A: Evaluate the quality, relevancy and currency of the information you have found

What is quality information?

The following information was extracted from the ACHIEVE programme available from your student portal:

 

How do you know if the information you have found is good enough to refer to in your work? Which should you discard and which can you use?

Look at the words that describe information in the table below and divide them into two categories - good and bad descriptors.

 

Readable
Subjective
Up-to-date Confused
Badly written
Current
Honest
Unreliable Inappropriate
Dishonest

Balanced

Unreadable
Relevant Out-of-date
Old
Clear
Incomplete
Objective Accurate
Comprehensive
Reliable
Dated
Appropriate Well written
Irrelevant
Biased
Inaccurate
Cursory Complicated
Entertaining

 

You'll probably find that some descriptors are difficult to categorise. For instance, how do you categorise 'complicated'? Complicated information can be both good and bad, depending on your information need. 'Subjective' and 'dated' information could be very relevant to students studying history, but completely unsuitable for science students.

 

It's important to critically appraise whether a piece of information is suitable for purpose. Use a mnemonic - PROMPT - as a guide to critically appraise your information:

 

P resentation   is the information presented in a clear and readable way?
Relevance
is the information appropriate and relevant to the purpose in hand?
Objectivity
is the content balanced or is there some bias?
Method
how was the information gathered together?
Provenance
who or what originated the information and are they reliable sources?
Timeliness
is the information up-to-date and does it matter in the context of your search topic?

 

Let's look at PROMPT more closely:

 

Presentation

This will take time and patience but is essential to ensure that you are using good quality information.

 

Relevance

It is important that you select information relevant to your assignment and this is determined by the requirements of the assignment. After first selecting good quality information you must next decide which of it is actually irrelevant to your search:

Be very clear about what your information needs are and have a search strategy for finding them [see Route 1: Planning a Search for more details].

Objectivity

Method

Is it clear how the research was carried out?

Were the methods appropriate?

Is the sample size large enough, what control groups were used, how was the questionnaire designed?

Provenance

Provenance is the origin or source of something (and who produced it).

A summary of what may be important considerations:

Timeliness

 

Road map
Painting
News item
Press release
Review of research
Book of poetry
Government circular
Scientific research article
Patent
Population statistics
Technical manual
News website

 

Not so easy, was it?

 

There is a checklist available here to help you evaluate the quality and relevance of your information.

 

Route 3B: Evaluate web-based resources

Go to a free online tutorial - Internet Detective - available here which offers practical advice on evaluating the quality of websites. Developed by the Universities of Bristol and Manchester Metropolitan.

 

Route 3C: Refine your search

 

Resources

Websites:

Tutorial: Internet Detective - Wise Up to the Web at http://www.vtstutorials.ac.uk/detective/