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Sport & Recreation Professions: Web Resources

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

Professional Associations

Web Links

Evaluating Sources

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

It is your responsibility to evaluate information sources.

3 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, etc.).
  • 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 called 'About Us' will provide this information.
  • Consider the purpose of the site.
  • Find out when the site was created and how frequently it is updated. Check to see when was it last updated. Older information may or may not be useful to you.
  • Determine if the website provides unbiased information and/or covers cover more than one side of the topic.
  • Try to evaluate if the information factual or opinion.
  • Consider whether the information can be verified elsewhere. Wikipedia is an example of an informational website that you might use if you can verify the data or facts in another reliable source.