Broad Scholars Research Guide: Evaluating Web Sources

• The most important factor for evaluating a Web source is the authority of the author
• The handout, below, will be useful to help you consider the quality of a site
• The Web will offer background information, government reports and statistics, eBooks, and limited scholarly content.  Be sure to critique the author and source of information.

Quick video on how to critically examine a Web site (This video is intended for undergraduate students.)

• Many scholars like the search interface of Google Scholar, but you may notice searches result in dated articles
  
•  Google Scholar is a tool in your toolbox so if you use it to search for scholarly literature, keep in mind that you will often have to go to the library databases or the interlibrary loan web page to get the full-text of an article.

        Here are some tips for using Google Scholar:

• To start, set up your preferences so your search results will link directly to MSU Libraries full-text content (this will linked to our licensed full-text content if we have access to that journal)
• Open 'Google Scholar' and click on 'Preferences' at the top right of the page Click the 'Find Library' button on the page, under 'Library Links' and type 'Michigan State University' (no quotes) in the search box
• Check the boxes, below, as shown:

• Professional and trade association Web sites are often good place to search to find out what is current in a discipline
• These Web sites contain names of scholars and practitioners in your business discipline, upcoming conferences, and sometimes  conference proceedings and papers that are not yet published
• To find these Websites, view our various subject specific research guides at this link