Skip to Main Content

Sports & Recreation Professions: Web Resources

Search strategies and sources of information for sport & recreation professions research.

Evaluating Sources

Are the sources you use credible and useful, accurate, and reliable?

It is your responsibility to evaluate information sources.

Three factors to look at include: authority, scope, and accuracy.

This video is from the North Carolina University Libraries and is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.  

  • Look at the URL and determine the type of domain (.com; .edu; .gov; .org).
  • Identify who created the site; this information may or may not be listed on the website.
  • Find the author's or publisher's credentials; this information may or may not be listed on the website. On many websites, the section titled "About Us" will provide this information.
  • Consider the purpose of the site.
  • Find out when the site was created and how frequently it's updated. Check to see when it was last updated. Older information may or may not be useful to you.
  • Determine if the website provides unbiased information and/or covers more than one side of the topic.
  • Try to evaluate if the information is factual or opinion.
  • Consider whether the information can be verified elsewhere.