Information is not created in a vacuum. Rather it is always produced within specific contexts and for particular audiences. Keep the following in mind when evaluating any information source, whether web-based or not.
- First hand accounts of an historical event, photographs of an artwork published in an exhibition catalog, and a novel or other literary work are all examples of primary sources. Think about who, if any one individual or group, the author intended as the audience. Many diary entries, for instance, were never intended to be seen or shared. In such cases, think about the motivations of the individual(s) who saved/preserved the document for future generations. Interviews (video or transcript), letters, and speeches are also primary sources.
- Articles written for academic journals or books published by university presses, whether found on the library's website, in the physical stacks, or on the open web are the two main types of scholarly (secondary) sources that professors typically require to appear on students' bibliographies and lists of works cited.
- Articles written for popular magazines (e.g., Time) or newspapers have little-to-no impact on scholarly debates. Students, however, are likely to find such sources useful when the goal is to find credible, general interest treatments of a topic. Blog posts written by authors you find credible will likely fit into this category.
- Editorials and position papers, of course, are meant to sway readers to a certain point of view. Issue advocacy is abundant on the open web but also shows up in a range of source types associated with the library including trade publications, newspapers (e.g., a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial), and even in scholarly journals.
- The principal goal of many social media posts (e.g., TikTok, YouTube) is to gain followers/viewers/subscribers. Of course this does not necessarily mean that all social media is "bad" or unreliable. Just keep in mind that, again, social media has no impact on scholarly debates. (Scholars might use social media posts as primary sources.) Particularly problematic are new AI tools (Sora, Veo) that allow content creators to easily post fake content.
- Comedies or satirical websites including those from social media entertain, critique, and/or provoke. In college, these sources will likely be studied—to the extent that they are studied at all—as primary sources.
- Sales pitches in any form that are intended to solicit money, make a sale, or elicit a particular action on the part of the reader, and that financially benefit a website's author and/or sponsor should generally be avoided.