1. Do(es) the author(s) of the article appear to use bias language that favors one position over another for reasons not related to the issue itself?
2. Do(es) the author(s) support their claims with evidence? (hint-what does the works cited list look like?)
3. Who published the source? (Remember that the platform from which the authority communicates affects the usefulness of the information for your research).
4. Based on the previous three questions, do you think that your source is authoritative?
5. Considering the context of your research, will you use this source for your paper?
6. Please take a moment to explain why you decided to include or exclude this source from your paper.
New Literacies Alliance CC 2016
The "Authoritative Sources" Tutorial by the Baylor Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
This tutorial is based on content from the "Question Authority" tutorial by Andrea Baer, Ashley Flinn, Melia Fritch, Robyn Hartman, Heather Healy, and Joelle Pitts in 2016 and can be found on the New Literacies Alliance page. The rest of the content was developed by Amy James, Head of Instruction and Information Literacy, and Ellen Hampton Filgo, Assistant Director of Research & Engagement, Baylor University Libraries.
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