SearchStart: Choose: Deciding what to use

Think about what information you need to complete your assignment.  Something may be of the highest quality but may not help you answer the question for your assignment.   

For example you may be doing an assignment that requires you to take a UK perspective in which case information from outside the UK may be less helpful, but if you are required to take a comparative or international perspective then the same information may be very useful. 

It is always helpful to know who is responsible for what you are reading.  When you are new to a subject looking for works by authors that are recommended on reading lists can be a good way to start but you can read more widely.  For Books and journal articles there is often information about authors' university connections.  

Not everything is written by named individuals. Information may be produced by governments and organizations. For example, if policy is relevant to your assignment this kind of information can be essential to your work. 

Information on websites can be very good quality or very poor.  Knowing who is responsible for the information will be an important step to assessing its quality.   Good websites will usually have an About statement telling you about the organisation responsible for the website. 

All information is written for a purpose or from a particular point of view.   Knowing why something was written, and knowing the point of view or assumptions of the writer, will help you decide whether it will be useful for your work and to evaluate what you are reading.  

Here are some useful questions to consider when evaluating a resource. 

Identifying that something is written for a particular purpose or from a particular point of view does not mean that you cannot use it in your work. In some cases this will be essential, for example to show that you know policy that is relevant to your work or to allow you to discuss public debates about your subject. In works that consider social justice and equality, and many other areas, language that expresses strong feelings or emotions may be appropriate in providing a context for the authors engagement with a topic.  

Most research will receive funding of some sort so if it is important that you can see where the funding has come from in order to judge how this might influence the research.   Funding may not determine the conclusions of research but it does influence what research is carried out in the first place. 

Use this handout to help you decide whether to use a piece of information in your work.

At university you will be expected to develop an understanding of current knowledge and debates in your subject. So it is important that your reading includes up-to-date publications where possible.  There is no exact rule for what counts as up-to-date but generally looking at information from the last  5 or 10 years will be appropriate. If you are exploring a topic where public policy is important it is important that your reading reflect the latest changes in policy.   When you find resources in Library Search the date is displayed in your results and you can filter your results by date so you only see recent items. 

Books and journal articles usually have a clear date which can be found with the copyright statement near the front of a book or on the title page of a journal article.  Websites usually show when they were last updated or revised near the bottom of the page.    

There may be good reasons to use older resources.  You may want to explore the development of an artist though her career, you may need to discuss something that has been an important influence on current writers or you may be exploring a topic for which there has been little recent research.  

Being able to choose what resources to use is not just an academic skill.   It is as important to have access to good quality information in your professional life and when making personal decisions. Concerns about fake news show that recognising good quality information is just as vital when using social media, search engines or reading a newspaper. 

A simple definition of fake news is:

"Fake, often sensational information disseminated under the guise of a new report"

(Collins English Dictionary . Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fake-news ).

Click on the image below for more on the key things to think about when reading a news story. 

If you have any doubts about a news story you should follow up with a fact checking service like Full Fact. 

Fake Fact Checks!  Be careful. Services that appear to be neutral may not be. On Tuesday 19 November 2019, during televised election debates between Labour and Conservative party leaders, the Conservative Party press office rebranded it's twitter feed as FactCheckUK in order to challenge statements made by the Labour party leader during the debate.