Most of your assignments at UT will require the use of scholarly articles. However, sometimes your professors will allow the use of credible, non-scholarly (or substantive) sources. These include:
- Newspapers/magazines
- Websites
- Blogs
- Documentaries
Many of these sources can be found using the library website; however they can also be found using a search engine like Google. That means that it is particularly important that you know how to evaluate these types of resources for credibility and relevance to your topic.
Evaluating online sources for credibility comes down to two things:
- Who wrote it? Are they an expert in the subject?
- Where did the author/creator get their information?
Please note that sometimes the author/creator won't give you all the information you need to assess the source for credibility. When that happens, you will need to do lateral reading to determine whether or not the source is valuable to you.
