Lesson 10 Contents:

Learning Objectives

I. Preface

II. Preliminary Evaluation of Books and Periodical Articles

III. Extra Care Required: Evaluating Websites and Web pages

IV. Summary

V. Key Points to Remember

Lesson Ten Quiz

Lesson Ten Exercise

I. PREFACE

It has been said that an educated person is someone who can make distinctions, i.e. someone who can recognize and separate the significant from the irrelevant, the high quality from the average, the coherent from the distorted. The ability to make these kinds of distinctions is especially important when doing research because not everything your research uncovers will be of equal value. Some of the information you find will be relevant and credible, some will not, and much will be somewhere in-between.

Research, therefore, is not merely finding information; it's also about evaluating it for usefulness and credibility. (Evaluating information comprises Steps 6-7 of the research process). You must make value judgments about the worth of information sources because the quality of the information you find is vastly more important than the quantity. This lesson will teach you specific criteria for making these evaluations.