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APSC 201 - Engineering Communication

Searching Online Effectively

Evaluate all of your sources:

  • Authority & Bias 
    • Who produced this source and why?
    • Is there a unique and relevant perspective gained in this source?
    • Is this source providing a clear indication of any bias, or is it trying to promote a hidden agenda? How can you tell the difference
    • Read the "About us" page as a starting point in evaluating a source
    • Do a separate search about the organization producing the source to read reviews about it. What do other people think of this source?
  • Date      
    • When was this source produced?
    • Is it still relevant now?
    • Can you tell when it was written and how accurate it still is? 
  • Type of Source
    • What kind of source is this? Is it applicable as a university level source of information?
    • You may find that Indigenous community websites, corporate reports, government statistics and reports, and social media all have something to offer as valid and important sources of information. How do you prioritize and represent those different viewpoints in your writing? How do you ensure that your work has a balanced and nuanced approach to a complicated topic? A wide range of sources, produced by different people and for different reasons, will help to ensure that you are representing important angles on a topic that may disagree with one another.
  • Relevance 
    • Is this the best source that you could find on your topic? The top results in library databases are often sorted by date or "relevance." In Google, the top results are informed by various factors, including paid placement - this is not the kind of criteria for selecting sources that will lead to a balanced perspective. You may need to search in multiple places in order to find and verify the accuracy and relevance of information.
    • The repetition of information online is not sufficient for it to be accurate. Considering all of the questions in this evaluation section together will help you to determine if a source is useful to inform your report. 

Google Scholar can be quite useful for finding academic sources, government reports, and non-governmental organization reports.

Using the site: search feature in Google and Google Scholar can be an effective way to query information from specific organizations. Examples: