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Manchester Campus Library

Manchester ENV 1800 - Sustainable Energy & the Environment - J. Lamb

Citing Resources

The bibliography or list of works cited at the end of your research paper is an acknowledgment of the sources of information you used. Sources of information might include books, magazine or journal articles, or interviews.

More APA Citation Help

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Watch a screencast tutorial from Purdue OWL called: APA Formatting: Reference List Basics.  Going step-by-step, this will show you how to format your References page in Microsoft Word using APA style.

What is a Peer-Reviewed Article?

Lloyd Sealy Library gives a good definition of peer-reviewed articles:

http://guides.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/content.php?pid=209679&sid=1746812

and so does San Diego State University Library & Information Access:

http://library.sdsu.edu/reference/research/peer-reviewed-articles

 

How to Evaluate Web Sites

Learn to be critical thinkers. When conducting research on the World Wide Web, evaluate the sites you are viewing using the criteria found in this section.

·         ACCURACY     Anyone can publish information on the web. The information may or may not be accurate. Most web sites are not verified by editors and fact checkers. Look for e-mail, contact address and phone numbers. You want to find out if the author is qualified to write the web page.

 

·         AUTHORITY     Web sites should enable the researcher to find out about the authors. Look for names, where they work, credentials, addresses, and e-mail addresses. Look for the URL domain. Is the author affiliated with an educational institution (edu), a government agency (gov), an organization (org), or a commercial site (com)? Do the authors/publishers list their qualifications?

 

·         OBJECTIVITY     Are the goals and aims of the persons or groups responsible for the web site clearly stated? Is the group/person/organization legitimate? Some sites are thinly disguised commercials or opinion pages. Does the author express his/her opinions? Ask yourself why the page was written and for whom.

 

·         CURRENCY     Dates are not usually included on web pages. Check for dead links and outdated information. If you see a date listed, it may be the date of posting or the date of revision.

 

·         COVERAGE     Are you getting all the information this site has to offer? Do you need specialized software to access the information? Are you required to pay a fee to access the information? Is the content of the web page balanced with text and graphics? Are links relevant to the document’s content? Good web sites should contain a statement explaining or summarizing topics covered on the site.

 

PC 7/98, 1/06