Once you've started to find some research sources, you'll want to choose the information that best fits your needs for your speech! Keep in mind that you want the information to be relevant to your topic, but also to be credible so your audience will find the information convincing and worth their time.
Source: "Research 101: Credibility is Contextual" by Anna Eisen, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
Learn about how credibility depends on many factors including the author, audience and purpose.Source: "Using the C.R.A.P. Test to Evaluate Websites" by Portland State University Library, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
This video explains the C.R.A.P. test and then uses it to evaluate three websites on the topic of performance enhancing drugs in sports.6-minute video on the CRAAP test for evaluating websites
Maybe it was easy to find, but is it good?
Assess: Does this information belong in my academic project or is it .... CRAAP?
Currency
Reliability
Authority / Accuracy
Purpose / Point of View
Is the information fact or opinion?
The idea here is that you want to know what you’re reading before you read it.
Now, you don’t have to do a Pulitzer prize-winning investigation into a source before you use it. But if you’re reading an article on economics by a Nobel prize-winning economist, you should know that. On the other side, if you’re watching a video on the benefits of milk that was created by the dairy industry, you want to know that as well.
Knowing the expertise and likely bias of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say.
Source: "Online Verification Skills — Video 2: Investigate the Source" by CTRL-F, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
When you don't care about a source -- or already suspect bias -- your best bet is to go out and find the best source you can on the topic, or look for consensus, to check the claims the original source is making
Source: "Online Verification Skills — Video 4: Look for Trusted Work" by CTRL-F, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context, and we're not sure if we're receiving all the details. In these cases, you can trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in it’s original context and get a sense if the version you saw was accurately presented.
Source: "Online Verification Skills — Video 3: Find the Original Source" by CTRL-F, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
Adapted from "SIFT (The Four Moves)" by Mike Caulfield, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Source: "How Library Stuff Works: Scholarly vs. Popular Sources" by McMaster Libraries, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
Learn about the differences between scholarly and popular sources and how to identify them when researching your topic.Bias is when the source has a particular viewpoint or ideology it is trying to promote. In the chart below, different United States news publishers are sorted by where their stories tend to "lean" in partisan political bias (liberal or conservative) and how much straight news reporting vs. news interpretation ("features," "opinion") vs. disinformation (nonsense or conspiracy theory) reporting they do. This chart is a few years old, but can give you a sense of how the presentation of the same event might differ across different organizations' websites!