Evaluating the sources of your information is a part of media literacy. You should apply evaluative criteria to all the sources you use in your research.

Questions to ask when evaluating media sources:

• Who is sending this message and why?
• What techniques are used to attract and hold attention?
• What points of view are represented?
• How might the message be interpreted in different ways?
• What is omitted from the message?

Questions to ask when evaluating information from Web pages and other media sources:

• What is the domain of the page?
• Who is publishing or sponsoring the page? Is contact information for the author/publisher provided?
  • Strip back the URL to discover the source of the page.
• How recently was the page updated?
• Be particularly wary of bias when viewing web pages. Anyone can create a web page about any topic. YOU must verify the validity of the information.

When you have finished answering these questions, you will have a good idea of whether the website/media source is reliable. There is no single system of evaluation of media sources. See the Library 101 Research Guide page "Evaluate Your Sources" for more information.