Evaluate Stock photos by Vecteezy
Home / Students / Information Literacy / Evaluating and Citing Information
Information: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
As consumers of information, we must constantly evaluate how to use the information we encounter. Is the information relevant to your situation? Is it accurate? Is it timely? These are questions that we must constantly ask ourselves to ensure that we are smart, ethical consumers of information. To evaluate sources, consider the following resources:
We have to be careful about how we consume, produce, and even share information. Learn more about misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information by clicking on the YouTube video on the left.
Related to misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation is the concept of fake news. Fake news can be false, sensational news stories that are intended to be shared widely. Additionally, fake news can be satirical, humorous news stories with the intent of criticizing or making fun of individuals, social issues, or aspects of a culture for entertainment purposes. To ensure you know how to spot fake news, click HERE.
Once you decide to use particular sources in your own work, you must cite those sources. When you cite sources, you give credit to the individuals who created that source. You also indicate that you "borrowed" information from the source, and the information did not come from your own thinking. The following is information about how to cite information:
If you want to cite sources using MLA format, click HERE. (Be sure to use the table on the left for citing particular types of sources.)
If you want to cite sources using APA format, click HERE. (Be sure to use the table on the left for citing particular types of sources.)
If you want to use a citation generator, consider these:
Note: Citation generators are helpful, but they may not always gather all of the relevant information on a webpage. ALWAYS CHECK THE INFORMATION IT GATHERS BEFORE GENERATING A CITATION!
Plagiarism is not giving credit to others' ideas or passing off others' ideas as your own. Plagiarism is essentially "stealing" others' ideas and is academically dishonest. To learn more about plagiarism, click HERE.
Are you finding images on the Internet and adding them to your presentations without citing the owner of the image? Are you copying and pasting passages into your papers without citing the author? Books, images, films, songs, art works, and other works are under copyright, meaning that the creator of that work owns it. Having a copyright also means that others are not allowed to possess that work in any way without the permission of the creator. Review the YouTube video on the left to learn about issues with copyright. To ensure your presentation follows copyright laws, click HERE.
Resources in the public domain mean that copyright no longer applies to these works. To access resources from a variety of academic disciplines, click HERE.
If you are interested in public domain ebooks, try Project Gutenberg. This website features numerous classic texts.
To find works in the public domain, try an advanced search, such as a Google Advanced Search. Begin a search by changing the "usage rights" filter box to "free to use share or modify."
Creative Commons resources are those in which creators give permission to use their works under a license agreement. This means that you can use some of these works freely in your products without having to cite the creator at all. Other works require you to cite the creator but still allow you to use these works in your products. Sometimes, the license even allows you to modify the original work. Before you download or copy any resources, be sure to determine if you should give credit to the creator and what you are allowed to do with the resource.
Here are some websites that feature Creative Commons resources:
Google Advanced Image Search (Change the "usage rights" filter box to "Creative Commons licenses.")