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Governor's School for Agriculture: 2019: Evaluating &
Citing Your Sources

Welcome! This guide is designed to help you find information for your research topics and projects that you'll be working on for the next couple of weeks. Please feel free to contact any of the librarians listed on this page for help!

Class Activities

Two crucial steps in the research process include:

1) Evaluating the sources you plan on using

2) Citing the sources that you used in your project

 

We'll use the following links during class to explore and practice:

Evaluating Sources for Credibility

Evaluation criteria

When evaluating a source to determine if it's credible and one you want to use in your project, consider:

1) Authority (who wrote it, or what is their expertise?)

2) Audience (who was it written for? This might help you determine bias)

3) Coverage (what aspect of your topic does it cover?)

4) Objectivity (what viewpoints are covered?)

5) Accuracy (are there other sources that have similar findings?)

6) Currency (when was it produced, and how does that fit in with your topic?)

 

 

Why cite your sources?

Citation styles

Be aware that there are several citation styles in existence, a few are listed at our citations page:

https://guides.lib.vt.edu/citationmanagers/CitationStyles

Make sure to use the APA citation style that has been assigned for this project, and if you have questions, be sure to:

Ask a Librarian