One of the most useful things I discovered throughout this module were the tips for evaluating online sources. These are found on pages 67-69 in the textbook and will help you determine if the source you are looking at is a reliable one. It tells you to check to see if the author’s credentials are available, the contact information is there, and about the publications reputation. This gives you some background to determine if this source is credible and can allow you to ask important questions to the people who made the source if you need to. Another thing that I learned is if the information uses broad or generalizing statements. This is found on page 69 also. I have put this into practice by making sure the source I’m looking at doesn’t use key words like “everyone” or “always” when talking about a topic or subject. This allowed me to determine if the source quality information or not, an allowed me to decide right then and there if I wanted to continue using this as a source for my project.
One thing that I can put into practice in the future, and focus more on is the audience level of a source. If the audience level of the source I am trying to write a paper on is way below my course requirements it is not a good idea to write using this source as a reference. If I am able to focus and determine the audience level more easily it will make picking out sources for a certain project much quicker.
Some advice I would give to you is to use these little tips when looking at a source. If you can do this it will allow you to quickly determine if this is the right or wrong source for you based off the topic or course you are writing in. If you look and there are no author credentials and it is below your audience level then you can quickly determine that this source is probably not the one for you. These tips will help when you are struggling to find a source that will help you in writing a paper, or doing a project, so I would urge you to use them to your advantage.