ENGL 1301 Lawhon Spring 2025: Evaluating Your Sources

Once you find a source, it's always a good idea to look at it closely to make sure it is accurate, authoritative, and suits your needs. You don't want to use articles from disreputable or questionable sources. What can you do to make sure that your sources are up to the job?

First, you have to do much less work in this area is you use sources through the ACC libraries! Librarians carefully evaluate the books and databases we provide to help you with assignments. Most of the work has been done for you! But not everything can be found in the libraries. So..

When looking at sources found on the internet, we encourage you to use the SIFT method. SIFT stands for:

1. Stop
   Don’t share, repost, or even bother reading more until you know more about the source. 
2. Investigate
   Figure out more about the source of the information -- who wrote it, what groups or points of view do they represent?
3. Find better coverage
   Do some "lateral reading" -- find out what others are writing about the topic or reporting about your source. Check it against fact-checking sites, especially if the source is making outrageous claims.
4. Trace claims and quotes back to the original source
   Does the source say "one study found"? Find that study and see if the article is faithfully presenting its findings.

You may find the following tutorial on Evaluating Information and Fake News useful.