Evaluating What You Find

Doing research requires a lot of choices. Making appropriate decisions along the way can save you time and lead you to the best sources of information. Once you have the materials in hand, you may need to evaluate them using these criteria.

Coverage

1. Suppose after reading an overview, you decide to focus on the topic of:

the pros and cons of building an irradiation facility on the Big Island.

Which of the following reference tools would you use:

Authority

The reliability and credibility of your information should be considered when evaluating your sources. This can be determined by an individual's credentials or a publisher's reputation, their authority.

• Is there any information provided about the author and what are his/her credentials?
• What kind of publication is the information from, a scholarly journal or a popular magazine, a book from a reputable publisher or a vanity press, where anyone can have their work published for a fee?

2. Which one of the following would you consider the most authoritative source for:

the pros and cons of irradiating food.

a. Good food you can’t get. (food irradiation) Larry Katzenstein. Reader’s Digest, July 1993 v143 n855 p43(5).
b. Irradiation to prevent foodborne illness. (From the Assistant Secretary for Health. US Public Health Service) Philip R. Lee. JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 27, 1994 v272 n4 p261(1).
c. Fruit irradiation (editorial). Honolulu Star Bulletin, 01 Jan 1997 A2.
d. Gamma rays have a glowing future. (Isomedix Inc.) Herbert E. Meyer. Fortune, May 4, 1981 v103 p201 (5).

 

Accuracy

Accuracy can be related to the type of publication used. A source that is edited or reviewed before publication is usually less likely to contain obvious errors.

• Is the source edited?
• Is the publication professionally reviewed to ensure that facts are accurate?
• Is the work documented with footnotes and a list of sources?

3. Which source listed below is the most likely to contain accurate information?

Objectivity

The purpose of the author and his/her personal biases can slant the presentation of information. Knowing the objectivity of the source of your information can help you to weigh the facts and how they are interpreted.

4. Which source would you consider the most objective?

a. a publication of a religious organization
b. a publication of the tobacco industry
c. a publication of the American Psychological Association
d. a publication of the Democratic Party

Scholarly/Popular

The type of publication is a factor to consider when doing research. Whether a source is scholarly or popular will help you to determine its authority.

5. Of the following periodicals, indicate which you think are popular magazines and which are scholarly journals.

Usefulness

 

When doing research, especially with computerized sources, all of the material retrieved may not be useful to you. They will only match the criteria of your search. You, however, must decide which is useful. You must decide what sources will most likely contain information that you can use or that will be of potential value to your research based on some of the criteria covered earlier.

6. Let’s try some sample searches. If you searched Hawai`i Voyager for books on  an introduction to food irradiation (the process of exposing food to radiation to help preserve it) and retrieved the following titles, which would you consider the best title to look at?

a. Food irradiation and the chemist (1990)
b. Food irradiation: a sourcebook (1995)
c. Physical principles of infrared irradiation (1991)
d. Tolerance of fresh commodities to gamma irradiation (1990)

 

7. Moving on to Infotrac/Expanded Academic Index, which of the following articles would you want to read if you want information on the topic:

the pros and cons of irradiating food.

8. From the following selection of articles from newspapers and periodicals, which would you try to locate when searching for information on the following:

the pros and cons of irradiating food on the Big Island. (There may be more than one answer.)

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