Credible Sources

Evaluating information for research is just a specialized, advanced form of the same critical
thinking skills you already use.

Why do we need to critically evaluate information sources?

o No source of information is guaranteed to be trustworthy. You always need to use

your own educated judgment, even with scholarly articles from library databases.

o Some sources of information are more trustworthy than others, but it can be hard
to tell from appearances.

o Evaluating information using critical thinking will save time and effort by filtering
out materials you should not use.

o Your critical thinking will show up in your writing and you will get better grades.

Your professors may tell you to find credible information sources. This is a subjective term
with many definitions, but the general consensus is that credibility is a combination
of reliability, authority, validity and accuracy.

 Reliability means that the entities that sponsored, supported, or published the
information source have a reputation for quality, and integrity.

 The entity can be a journal, book publisher, movie studio, any kind of
organization that puts information out on a web site, etc.

 Authority means that the creator of the information source is an expert in the field.
 The creator can be an author, multiple authors, or an organization,
government agency, company, etc.

 Validity means that the research in the information source was conducted in ways that
are commonly accepted for that field of study.
 For example, anecdotes are not valid in the sciences. Raw numbers are not
valid in the humanities.
 There are some inclusions that are not valid in any scholarly field of study:
logical fallacies, blatant emotional manipulation, deceit, etc.

 Accuracy means that you have ways of determining the correctness of the information
in the information source.
  You can verify the information in one information source by checking it
against other information sources.
 You can verify the information in an information source against real word
tests that you perform yourself.

What Does the Information Source Tell You About Itself?

Scholarly Information Sources

If you have a scholarly information source like a monograph or a peer reviewed journal
article, you are in luck. When these kinds of information sources are published, they have
your needs in mind.

So you know:

o It was either peer reviewed or editorially reviewed (and you can find out more by
going to the publisher's or journal's web site.)
o It was produced by a subject expert and for an audience of subject experts.
o It was produced for the purpose of informing and educating. It is supposed to be
objective and unbiased. (It is not perfect, but it is still better than if there were no
such expectation!)

Plus, they make it easy to find out:

o Who wrote this?

o When was this written?
o Who provided funding for this?
o Who published this?
o What potential conflicts of interest are there?
o What kinds of sources did they get their information from?

Non-scholarly but Formally Published Information Sources

Here are some types of information sources that are formally published but non-scholarly:

o Newspapers;
 o Documentaries;
o Magazines;
o Books from commercial publishers.

For these kinds of information sources, you will easily be able to find out:

o When it was written?

o Who wrote it?
o Who published it?
o Maybe what sources they got their information from.

But non-scholarly information sources are not held to the same standards as scholarly ones.
There is a whole range, from highly credible to thoroughly disreputable.

o They may or may not be objective and unbiased.

o They may or may not attempt to mislead or manipulate you.
o They may or may not use good sources and check their facts.

You will have to make a judgment based on two things:

o The reputation of the organization that published the information source (book
publisher, magazine, etc.)
o The actual contents of the information source.

Information Sources that were Never Formally Published

It used to be that without the resources of a large organization like a journal or book
publisher, it was hard for an author to get their information source out to an audience. So
almost all research was done using books and articles (and of course, primary sources,
which were sometimes very hard to get to.)

Now we have the Internet, and if you have a connection, you can make a web page and put
whatever you want up there. If you go to college, your college may give you an opportunity
to put your papers into an online repository. Organizations and companies of all kinds put
many of their documents online - everything from policies and procedures, to data and
reports. Ephemera like brochures and pamphlets that used to be throw-away pieces of
paper now linger on the web for years after they have gone out of date. Famous authors
have blogs, and so do politicians, subject experts, and schoolchildren, and business people
trying to make a name for themselves.

All of these things are available to you as information sources. Some of them may be good
for research, and many others are not.

o They do not have a standard way to tell you who created them (and they may not
tell you at all.)
o They do not have a standard way to tell you when they were created (and they
may not tell you at all.)
o They do not have a standard way to disclose any sources of financial support or
biases (and they may not tell you at all.)
o They do not have a standard way to tell you what information sources they
used, if any (and they may not tell you at all.)
o They may actually be plagiarizing text or images or even copying whole other
sources and not giving you any way to find out.
o Depending on who produced the content, there may not be oversight from a
larger organization with a reputation to worry about, which might have helped
to ensure quality and ethical integrity of the content.

Plus the useful informational content is mixed in with content that was made to sell you
things, manipulate you into changing your mind or changing your actions, and straight up
deceive you.

Long story short, you have to be really careful with information sources that were never
formally published. Usually that means "websites," but the same rules apply to:

o self-published or vanity press books;

o public access TV shows;
o pamphlets, newsletters, etc. produced by an organization to promote itself or its
cause.

Reliability

In general, reliability means consistency, quality and integrity.

In the case of a scholarly information source, like a monograph or scholarly journal article,
you know:

o It was either peer reviewed or editorially reviewed (and you can find out more by
going to the publisher's or journal's website).
o It was produced by a subject expert for an audience of subject experts.
 o It was produced for the purpose of informing and educating. It is supposed to
be objective and unbiased (though this is sometimes not the case).

Plus, with scholarly information sources, it is easy to identify:

o Who wrote it?

o When was it written?
o Who provided funding?
o Who published it?
o What potential conflicts of interest are there?
o What kinds of sources were used in the research?

You can learn a lot about an information source by looking at the the organization(s)
responsible for producing it. Some questions to ask when encountering non-scholarly
information sources:

o Is their reputation for putting out good information their first priority, or do they
have other priorities? In particular, be wary of any organization that is trying to sell
something, raise money for something, win an election, win a court battle, win a
war, win a battle of public opinion, save souls, or save the world. Not that there is
anything wrong with those things necessarily, but it is very hard for anyone to put
objective scholarship first when they have those priorities.
o Do they value honesty and integrity?
o Do they value research and scholarship?

Authority

How do we know that the author or authors are experts? We can examine their curriculum
vitae (C.V.), their publication history, and the response their work has received from other
experts in the field.

Examine the Author's Curriculum Vitae

o From the author's resumé or C.V. we can learn that:

 The author has published through reputable journals or publishers.
 The author has been employed by reputable institutions.
 The author has the right educational credentials.

o From the author's publication history we can learn whether:

  Those publications have been well-reviewed.
 Those publications have been frequently cited by other authors.

A curriculum vitae is a combination resumé and publication list for people who work in
academia. Most people put their curriculum vitae online, whether on a personal website, a
jobs website, or their biographical page on their institution's website. To locate one, you can
usually just do a Web search (e.g., "G.J. Barker-Benfield" "curriculum vitae")

What to look for:

1. First, you want to make sure there is a resumé or C.V. Unless the author died or
retired before 2000, there should be one online. If not, they may not actually be a
scholar.

2. Second, you want to read about their education. Do they have one or more PhDs?
 In a subject area that is relevant to your research?
 From accredited institutions?
 From institutions that are known for their excellence in that subject area?
For example, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is renowned for its architects
and engineers, but not for literature or educational studies.

3. Third, look at their employment history. Have they gotten jobs researching and
teaching at the college level in their subject area?
 At accredited institutions?
 At institutions with a good reputation for that subject area?
 The job market is tough for scholars. Do not discount research just because
the author is an adjunct or works at a college whose name you do not
recognize.

4. Fourth, what kinds of honors they have achieved?

 Leadership roles in professional and scholarly associations
 Awards
 Grants

5. Fifth, how much they have published about your topic of interest? Also, what
publishers and journals have accepted their work? Some publishers and journals
have stricter standards than others, and it really says something good about an
author's research if is being published in them.

Use Google Scholar to Find Citation Counts

There are special (and expensive) tools that scholars can use to measure impact factor, but
you will not need those. To get a general idea of how many times a particular work has been
cited (its impact factor), you can use Google Scholar. Search for the author(s). Then, under
the works listed in the search results, look for the phrase "Cited by" follow by a number
(highlighted in red below). This is the number of times other published scholars have
referenced this work in their research. You can click it to view a list of the works that cited it.
Run some searches on articles on the same topic, published at the same time to get a basis
for comparison.

Use Databases to Find Reviews of Monographs in Journals

A scholarly book of any significance is going to be reviewed in scholarly journals in that
subject area, and whether a work has received a negative or positive review matters less
than the actual strengths and weaknesses that the review identifies.

To find scholarly reviews: [if you have access to a database such as OneSearch, through your
academic institution or otherwise]

1. Enter title of the book (in quotation marks) and search.

2. Use the navigation bar on the left side of the search results to narrow by Source Type
to Reviews.
3. If your book has a very common title, you might want to narrow things down.
 Add AND "author's last name" to the title and try the search again.
 Limit by date (the publication date of the book plus a year or two).

Book reviews usually appear as follows in the search results list:

Finding Reviews of Non-scholarly Books

Most non-scholarly sources are never reviewed. You will not find reviews for websites, blogs,
or the many kinds of gray literature that are found on the Web. However, many high quality
non-fiction books will be reviewed in places such as the New York Times Book Review.
Use OneSearch to Find Critical Responses to Scholarly Articles

When you have a scholarly article that covers one point of view about a topic, you may wish
to find articles that criticize or rebut it.

To find these kinds of critical responses: [if you have access to a database such as OneSearch,
through your academic institution or otherwise]

1. Enter the article title (in quotation marks).

2. At the top of your list of preliminary search results, click the Advanced Search link
underneath the search box.
3. Look at the date that the original article was published and limit your search to that
year and beyond. For example, if the article came out in 2009, set your search to
2009-2012 (or the current year.)
4. Set the pull-down menu next to the search box to Title (TI).
5. Search for (“author’s last name” OR “short title of the article”) AND (“critique of” OR
“response to” OR “response from”).

For example, if your original article is “Two Faces of Power” by Peter Bachrach and Morton
Baratz, enter this:

(“two faces of power” OR (bachrach AND baratz)) AND (“critique of” OR “response
to” OR “response from”)

Bear in mind that not every article receives direct responses. If you have tried several
variations on the search and have not had any luck, even with a librarian’s help, you are
probably better off just searching for articles on the same topic to see what others are
saying about

Validity

Validity asks the question, "How do we know what we know?" Every field of study answers that
question differently, but there are some ideas that are generally considered invalid, no matter
whether an information source is scholarly or non-scholarly, and no matter what discipline or
subject area it falls under.

In an earlier section, we talked about how the intended audience and purpose of an information
source can slant the information in it. The concepts of ideology, agenda and bias are related to
that.
 o Ideology is a belief system shared by a group of people. Religions, political groups, and
advocacy groups have ideologies. Not all ideologies are bad. And just because an author
subscribes to an ideology does not mean that the information source necessarily has an
ideological agenda.

o Agenda is a set of goals shaped by an ideology. If an information source has an agenda, that
means it is not strictly informational or educational. It is probably actually a persuasive
information source or a piece of propaganda, even if it is pretending to be otherwise.

o Bias is the tendency of an information source to selectively over-emphasize some things and
de-emphasize other things in such a way that it unfairly favors a certain conclusion or point of
view.

A credible information source will not try to tell you how to feel about the information.

Validity by Discipline

Humanities
Literature, the Arts, History, Philosophy, Theology
In the humanities, the author is either constructing a worldview, or (more often) adding to,
refining, and correcting a worldview that other scholars have created. That worldview needs to
be self-consistent and consistent with the evidence. It needs to be able to support new discoveries
and insights. And it often needs to be beautiful.

Here are some criteria for validity that can be generalized in the humanities:

o Good use of primary sources. Appropriate sources are chosen. They are translated and
interpreted correctly. Provenance is clear.
o Anecdotes are fine as long as the author makes it very clear how they represent general
principles.
o Drawing connections and creating a persuasive (and beautiful) argument in favor of them.
o No logical fallacies.
o Exhaustive knowledge of relevant secondary sources, both the ones who support the author's
arguments and the ones who oppose them. Addressing and participating in the multi-
threaded conversation among thinkers is very important in the humanities.

Social Sciences
Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Linguistics, Economics
The social sciences try to explain human minds and human societies using scientific method, but
they are limited in how they can apply scientific method because of the practical and ethical
problems that arise when you try to experiment on or observe human beings, communities, and
cultures under controlled conditions.

o As with the humanities, social science criteria for valid information sources include a good
background in the work of other scholars in the subject area, and no logical fallacies.
o Statistics are very important for deriving measurable information from the inputs. A valid
social science information source will tell you exactly what statistical instruments were used
and will present not only the numbers, but also a measure of how certain those numbers are
(standard deviation, plus or minus language.)
o Research methods are important. A valid social science information source will have a whole
section that describes methods, and will address things like how the sample was selected,
how representative the sample was, and how variables were controlled for. The weaknesses
and ambiguities will be addressed.
o Avoiding bias - usually unconscious - on the part of the experimenter/observer, or in the
responses of study participants - is very important.

Sciences
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Earth Science, Astronomy, Environmental
Science

The sciences pursue data about natural phenomena, with the goal of formulating theories that
explain and predict those phenomena.

o Just like the humanities and social sciences, a science information source should include a
good background in the work of other scholars in the subject area, and no logical fallacies.
o Scientific validity requires that the claims be generalizable (externally valid), reproducible
and falsifiable.
o Issues of metrology come up in the sciences - how accurately and precisely were they capable
of measuring? How much can we trust their instruments? Were they actually measuring what
they thought they were measuring?
o Scientific research methods are extremely rigorous, even compared to social science
methods. This is because scientific studies focus on phenomena that can be measured with
much less ambiguity. No allowance is made for extra variables.
o Just like the social sciences, a science information source needs to avoid bias and use
good statistical and research methods.

Applied Fields

There is probably an applied field for every academic field. Especially consider business,
engineering, computer science, nursing, education...
The applied fields are all about carrying out the activities of the everyday world. In the applied
fields, consider the criteria for validity that are used by the related academic disciplines. In
education, consider the validity criteria for psychology and sociology. In engineering, consider
the validity criteria for chemistry and physics.

Also bear in mind that the applied fields are practical, and so they care about what works in
practice.

Some More about Validity

Validity is the question, "How do we know what we know?" It's tricky because every field of
study has a different set of value judgments that they make about validity. But there are some
things that are generally considered invalid, no matter whether an information source is scholarly
or non-scholarly, and no matter what discipline or subject area it is in.

Agenda and Bias = Not Valid

In an earlier section, we talked about how the intended audience and purpose of an information
source can slant the information in it. The topics of agenda and bias are related to that.

o Ideology is a belief system shared by a group of people. Religions, political groups, and
advocacy groups have ideologies. Not all ideologies are bad! And just because an author
subscribes to an ideology does not mean that the information source necessarily has an
ideological agenda.

o Agenda is a set of goals shaped by an ideology. If an information source has an agenda, that
means it is not strictly informational or educational. It is probably actually a persuasive
information source or a piece of propaganda, even if it is pretending to be otherwise.

o Bias is the tendency of an information source to selectively over-emphasize some things and
de-emphasize other things in such a way that it unfairly favors a certain conclusion or point of
view.

This set of targets demonstrates what bias means.

o On the left is a target where all five shots were accurate. That represents research
conclusions that represent the way things actually are.

o On the right is a target where all five shots were all over the place. That represents research
conclusions that were incorrect, but not biased. The errors didn't systematically skew in any
 one direction.

o In the middle is a target where all five shots are clustered over on one side. That represents
research conclusions that are not only incorrect, but biased. The errors all systematically skew
in one direction.

So while an author may belong to a certain ideology, that can still be OK. It's when the
information source has an agenda, such that it's possible to detect bias, that's when you do not
want to use the information source for research.

A few common ways bias happens:

o Confirmation bias is when people, including writers and readers, fail to notice or remember
things that do not fit into their assumptions, and of notice and remember things that do fit
into their assumptions. (This gets even worse when Google and social media use your clicks
and "likes" to decide what to show you!)

o Confounding bias is when researchers fail to rule out the effects of another variable, that us
different from the one they are studying. Confounding bias can be accidental, negligent, or
intentional.

o Selection bias refers to the need for researchers to select a sample from the overall
population, when they observe or conduct an experiment. Their sample can fail to represent
the entire population for many reasons. Selection bias can be accidental, negligent, or
intentional.

o Observer effect is when people (or animals) behave differently when they realize they are
being observed, even if they do not mean to.

o Publication bias refers to how it can be hard for writers and researchers to report that
"nothing happened," or "It did not do what we thought it was going to do." By reading the
news or scholarly literature, you can get a distorted view.
Emotional Manipulation = Not Valid

Emotional manipulation means that the information source has not stopped trying to persuade
you with facts and logic, but is trying to bypass your mind and get to your "heart" and your
"gut."

Evaluating Internet Material

Read this article, which explains factors relevant to assessing the reliability of Internet
sources. Many of the factors mentioned in this material are also relevant to assessing the
reliability of other sources.

Internet Research

Finding Materials on the Internet

Internet search engines are powerful tools for delivering easily accessible
sources of information in the research process.
Using the Internet as a Research Source

As you gather research for your speech, you’ll want to have a variety of sources from which
to compile supporting evidence and facts. With the advent of digital archiving, social media,
and open-source education, it’s easier than ever before to find information on the Internet.
With such widespread accessibility, the Internet allows you to conduct research from just
about anywhere.

Why Use the Internet?

The Internet is pervasive, easily accessible, and continually updated. It only makes sense to
capitalize on this ever-evolving technology as a resource for your speech research.

In addition to convenience and accessibility, the Internet allows you to access resources to
which you may not have the physical means to get previously. You might not be able to just
hop on a plane to Paris and see DaVinci’s La Jaconde (more commonly known as the Mona
Lisa), but thanks to the Internet, you can now browse the hundreds of works at Le Louvre
right from the convenience of your laptop.
The Internet is also an excellent way to familiarize or orient yourself with an unfamiliar
speech topic. While you might not be able to cite every informational source you find, using
the Internet in your research process is a fast way to get yourself familiar with the basics of
your speech topic, thesis, or key supporting points and arguments.

The Art of the Search Query

When getting started with most Internet research, the first thing you’ll do is open up your
Internet browser and open to a search engine. While Google may dominate the search
engine market, recognize that Bing, Yahoo!, Ask, and AOL Search round out the top five
most popular search engines in the United States. Other popular search engines include
Wolfram Alpha and Instagrok.com. Using different search engines may yield different
results, so don’t limit yourself to just one search engine. Additionally, some search engines
excel at certain types of information and searches more than others.

Internet information, particularly of a certain quality or standard, can be organized in other

ways besides word choice and prominence (as attended by global search engines). Some
information may also require further search skills to retrieve. A familiarity with midpoints like
directories, “invisible” databases and an attentiveness to further types of organization may
reveal the key to finding missing information. A thesaurus, for example, may prove critical to
connecting information organized under the business term “staff loyalty” to information
addressing the preferred nursing term “personnel loyalty” (MeSH entry for Medline by the
[US] National Library of Medicine).

While each search engine may have specific search query shorthand, almost all major search
engines function by using Boolean logic and Boolean search operators. Boolean logic
symbolically represents relationships between entities and uses three key search operators.
These operators help you form your search query:

o AND: The AND operator connects two or more terms to retrieve information
that matches all of those terms. If, for example, you were searching for
information about the freedom of speech in the United States, you might
search for “freedom AND United States. “
o OR: The OR operator searches for information that includes at least one of the
keywords included in your query. If you were researching on court cases
about freedom of speech, you might search for “freedom of speech OR
amendment. “
o NOT: The NOT operator excludes any keywords following the operator and
retrieves the appropriate information excluding those terms. If you wanted to
find out more about free speech in schools but not anything related to
Supreme Court cases, you might search for “freedom of speech NOT Supreme
Court. “
 Types of Material on the Internet

The Internet is like an endless virtual library where thousands of new sources of information
are added every second of the day. That being said, there are many different types of
information to be found across the vast expanse of the Internet.

Exercise #1

Scholarly Journals and Databases

The most common source of reliable, credible information you will find on the Internet is
through scholarly journals and databases. These academic, peer reviewed collections
provide you with extensive reports, case studies, articles and research studies to help bolster
your research process. Most online scholarly journals are categorized by certain subjects,
professions, and fields of study and allow you to seek out the most targeted information
possible. Many online journals and databases will only let you preview an article abstract or
summary, requiring a paid per-article or subscription fee to view the complete article.
However, many college and university libraries have arrangements such that you don’t have
to pay to view articles. Check with your library to see if they can get you a copy of complete
articles that you can’t access online. Popular online scholarly databases include:

o Academic Search Premier

o EBSCO Host
o Entrez-PubMed
o JSTOR
o Lexus Nexus Academic Search
o Project MUSE
o ProQuest

Online Encyclopedias
Several major encyclopedia publishers have online versions of their materials. Some charge
an access fee to view full entries. In 2001, Wikipedia sought to change this by creating an
open-source encyclopedia edited and curated by the Internet. With over 23 million articles,
entries in Wikipedia are collaboratively written by volunteers around the globe. Because of
this, the quality of writing may not make it the most reliable or accurate source of
information. However, if you’re just looking to get a handle on basic ideas about your
speech topic, Wikipedia is a great first source to check out. Also, make sure to click through
and investigate a Wikipedia’s article’s references list to find other, more quality and reliable,
sources of information on the same subject.

Video
With over 48 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute, YouTube has compiled
more videos across every two week span (8 years of video per day) than total number of
years that motion pictures have existed (117 years in 2012). Video can provide you a rich,
visual depth to your Internet research, providing you with first-hand accounts, video
tutorials and diaries, and citizen journalism.

Online Books
Online tools such as Project Gutenberg and Google Books now allow you to access full
books from the comfort of your Internet browser. Project Gutenberg is an open-source
collective of full texts now in the public domain. Google Books offers both full texts and
partial previews on millions of books. Because both of these resources index the content of
each full text, they are searchable to find the exact content and information you need.

The Impact of Social Media

While many would dismiss the credibility and reliability of information garnered from social
media sources, both Twitter and Facebook can provide intrinsic value to your Internet
search. Most mainstream journalism outlets can no longer keep up social media’s
immediacy of information sharing, making some into a form of citizen journalism that
provides real-time, first-person accounts of world events. If you were preparing a speech
about the Arab Spring or the 2012 Presidential Election, social media would be invaluable to
your research tracking populist sentiment and eyewitness accounts in real-time reporting.

Evaluating Material from the Internet

Given the widespread authorship of the Internet, carefully evaluate all Internet sources for
credibility, reliability, bias, and accuracy.
Evaluating Internet Material
The biggest advantage of using the Internet as a research tool is the ease with which you
can find information. The biggest disadvantage, then, is parsing through the bevy of
information to find credible, reliable, accurate information. The burden of filtering truth
from fiction in your Internet searches lies solely with you as the researcher.

What is Search Engine Bias?

The first thing to understand about using the Internet as a source of information is that
search engines are biased gateways to the information you seek. This bias may be driven by
proprietary search algorithms dictated by corporate sponsors, ad revenue, and even politics,
thus affecting the type of search results your queries will display. Understand that just
because you’re searching for something on a popular search engine, it doesn’t mean you’re
getting the full spectrum of available information about your search query.

Essential Questions to Ask When Evaluating Internet Material

When searching for reliable information on the Internet, there are several questions you
should ask yourself with each source of information you find. This may seem tedious, but
you don’t want your thesis to be undone by someone questioning the credibility of your
research, or worse, you as a speaker.

The ADAM Approach

The ADAM approach is an acronym to help you remember the four most important things
to consider when evaluating the quality of your materials found via the Internet:

o Age: How recent is the data or information presented in your source? When
was the website last updated? Use only the most current information you can
find.
o Depth: Does your material go in depth with your subject or merely cover the
basics? Are the details from scholarly or academic sources? Look for sources
that go in depth rather than provide you with just an overview of your
subject.
o Author: Who wrote your source? What are their credentials? What makes
them an authoritative expert on this subject? What biases might they have?
Try to seek out impartial, authoritative experts when you can.
o Money: Who funds the website? Is the website trying to sell you anything?
Who advertises at the website? Where else might this website be advertised?
Again, you’ll want to seek out as many impartial sources as you can and you
 want to make sure that you fully investigate the transparency of any agenda a
website might have.

Domain Credibility
Sometimes the clue to a website’s authenticity and credibility is within the actual website
address itself. The following top-level domains (TLD) can give you an idea of how reliable
and accurate the information may be:

o .com: The most popular TLD worldwide, originally used by commercial

entities, now a de facto standard on the Internet. Reliability and credibility not
always guaranteed.
o .edu: Only schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions
can use this TLD, often indicating a reliable source of information.
o .gov: Only government organizations may use this TLD. Guaranteed to be
both accurate and credible.
o .org: Originally reserved for non-profit organizations (NPO) or non-
government organizations (NGO), this TLD can be used by commercial
entities. In 2012, a.ngo TLD has been added to the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as a domain extension.
o .net: Primarily used by internet service providers. Depending on what kind of
information you’re looking for, sites with a.net TLD may or may not provide
you with any useful information.

Social Media and Multimedia Sources

Audio, video, and multimedia materials that have been recorded, then broadcast,
distributed, or archived by a reputable party may also meet the necessary criteria to be
considered reliable sources. Like text sources, media sources must be produced by a reliable
third party and be properly cited. Additionally, an archived copy of the media must exist. It
is convenient, but by no means necessary, for the archived copy to be accessible via the
Internet.

The rapid growth of social media and its ability to disseminate relevant information to
multiple users based on shared interests and relationships has increased its importance in
the world of Internet research. Wikipedia, one of the most popular wiki websites in the
world, relies on scholarly material and crowdsourcing to provide accurate, targeted, and
comprehensive information to the masses.
When using social media sources, researchers should be aware of sites that have a poor
reputation for checking facts or for moderating content. Such sources also attract publishers
expressing extremist views, promoting products, or posting false and inaccurate
information.

For that reason, self-published media – whether e-books, newsletters, open wikis, blogs,
social networking pages, Internet forum postings, or tweets – should be used with caution.
Self-published material may be acceptable when it has been produced by an established
expert on the topic at hand, and whose work in the relevant field has been previously
published by reliable third-party publications.