Searching 101

Source Evaluation

The two big questions you need to ask yourself when evaluating the perspective of one source are:

• Who "published" this source?
• Who is speaking?

Published could be referring to the general meaning of the word as in the publisher of a book or a magazine. Or, the "publisher" could be the organization that sponsored the book, magazine, web page, radio station, TV station, and so on. The "publisher" could be a government, a political party, a corporation, a nonprofit organization, anything really. If that "publisher" represents a constituency of any sort, that would mean something in terms of the perspective that information source is providing. Only YOU can decide what the meaning is.

Who, in this case, refers to a specific individual. This could be a reporter for a newspaper, a political science professor, a kindergarten teacher, a senator, an ex-ambassador. The profession of the person, the ethnicity of the person, the nationality of the person, the sex of the person, and so on, all are factors that might make a difference in the perspective that person offers. Only you can decide which factors are relevant in any particular case.