Critical Evaluation of Information Sources aura Engaged Excellence in Research and Teaching Practices Critical Evaluation of Information Sources Research 1, Session 17, Day Three

Learning Outcomes By the end of this session, you will be able to: Identify the appropriate structure of an academic article, and other resources Apply evaluation criteria to the information sources

Brainstorm: The Evaluation Criteria Brainstorm the evaluation criteria that can be used to assess the quality of an academic article: e.g. is authoritative and rigorous in its research approach (10 mins)

Evaluation Criteria Reputation Currency Informative title & abstract, Credible authority or author Location Clear statement of purpose & significance Context/literature review Methodology Findings Discussion Conclusion Bibliography

What Would be the Structure of a Good Academic Article? 10 minute discussion Photo credit: sduvigneau

Structure of a Journal Article Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion Conclusion Acknowledgements References Source: https://writingajournalarticle.wordpress.com/structure/structure-the-paper/

Activity: Identify the ‘Quality’ of your Information Source Apply the following evaluation criteria to the article(s) you retrieved: Currency – is the article within a reasonable timeframe? Credible authority or author – is the author an established authority on the subject? Clear statement of purpose & significance –the article clearly states the intention of the research and why the topic is important? Methodology - is the methodology for conducting the research explicit? Conclusion – does the conclusion indicate how research has contributed to the knowledge landscape or domain (30 mins)

The content is authored by: Professor Mark Hepworth, Professor in People’s Information Behaviour, Centre for Information Management, Loughborough University m.hepworth@lboro.ac.uk This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.