Once you find a source, it is important to do an evaluation to ensure that it is both credible and meets the needs of your research project. Sources are created for many different reasons, and these reasons can influence the information they include or exclude. Evaluating sources helps determine their strengths and weaknesses so you can build a sturdy foundation of information to inform your own work.
Peer-review is a process used in many fields to assess scholarly articles. When an author submits an article to a peer-reviewed journal to be considered for publication, the draft is sent to experts in a discipline related to the article. Those experts critique the methodology, findings, and reasoning used in the article to evaluate its merit towards publication. These experts provide their critiques to an editor, who uses the information to decide which articles to publish. The academic world used the peer-review process as a way to check that scholarly articles which make it to publication are valid.
There are several resources that are helpful for verifying facts presented in the news and elsewhere on the internet.
