Evaluating is a process of assessing the quality of a source. It involves weighing up its relative strengths and weaknesses taking into account factors such as reliability, accuracy, authority, currency, point of view or bias.

Evaluating sources is essential to academic writing which is a form of evidence based writing. The standard of evidence is only going to be as good as the quality of the sources cited in an essay, so evaluating sources carefully and applying critical thinking to the literature is essential.

This guide will offer advice on evaluating sources and equip you with some useful tools to help along the way.