It's one thing to find resources that speak to your design challenges. It's a trickier thing to determine if the webpage is useful for your purposes.
This page provides some strategies and questions you can use to evaluate the resources you find.
Remember, source evaluation is not a checklist! A source that is appropriate for one use might not be appropriate for another. Always keep in mind the type of information you need, and the reasons you need it.
Additional resources on evaluating sources can be found on the Library's comprehensive Evaluating Sources guide.
The Source and Beyond the Source
Ask yourself the following questions about the source, and your experience with the source.
The Source
- What does it say / what is the main point?
- Where was it published / posted?
- When was it published / posted?
- Who is the author / creator?
- Why does it exist?
- How does it incorporate evidence?
Beyond the Source
- When was it changed?
- Where did you access it?
- What other information can you find about this topic?
- Who's missing from the conversation?
- Why do you need this information?
- How did the information find you? How did you react?
The Source + Beyond the Source Evaluation Framework by DePaul University Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Created by Firouzeh Rismiller, Holly Cerney, Susan Shultz, Grace Spiewak, and Sveta Stoytcheva.
Sample Source and Beyond the Source Answers
The Source + Beyond the Source Evaluation Framework by DePaul University Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Created by Firouzeh Rismiller, Holly Cerney, Susan Shultz, Grace Spiewak, and Sveta Stoytcheva.