Te Kete Wānaka
Learning, Teaching and Library
Understanding information
This page will help you determine if the information you find is suitable to use in university-level writing.
Once you have found information it is important to understand the reliability and context of the information source. The information you find will range from the gold standard of peer reviewed literature at one end of the suitability spectrum all the way to social media rants at the other end.
Not all information is created equal. The following advice will help you identify what kind of information you have found and decide if it is suitable for your assessment/research and how much weight you should give to that information in your argument. It’s important to consider where your information is coming from and its validity in an academic setting. You need to make a distinction between scholarly and popular material. We’ve outlined the most popular sources and their identifying features below:
Peer review is the gold standard of academic writing and a good rule of thumb is that in most assessments that include sources, at least 50% of your sources should be peer reviewed.
Peer review is a scholarly process where articles intended to be published in an academic journal are reviewed by independent experts ( A peer is a fellow scholar with strong expertise in the topic being written about.
Peer reviewed articles are published in scholarly journals. These are written by scholars or experts in their field and are intended for a scholarly audience. The main purpose of a scholarly journal is to report original research or experiments.
Peer-reviewed articles follow a certain format that includes an A short 1 paragraph summary of the research carried out in an academic article explaining the problem and the key findings. This is placed at the very start of the article.
How do I know if a journal is peer reviewed?
There is no comprehensive list you can refer to that will tell you if a journal is peer-reviewed. Instead you should check the journal’s homepage or its instructions for authors. If you are still unsure, library staff and learning advisors will be able to help you.
Features and academic usefulness of different information sources.
Books (monographs)
Books usually provide an in-depth look at a fairly broad topic and will cover it in considerable depth with different chapters addressing specific sub sections of the topic.
The information in books is usually reasonably up-to-date at the time of printing but you should be careful with older books that progress hasn’t made the information obsolete and incorrect.
Books are good for getting a solid overview on the topic or you may find one specific chapter particularly relevant.
Textbooks are good as a starting place for theories and the overall structure of a discipline.
Journal Articles (peer reviewed articles, scholarly articles)
Journal articles are the main type of academic article used in higher education writing and research. Each article is on a very specific topic and looks into it deeply, usually with a review of how it fits into the wider discipline. Each article is published in a journal which focuses on a specific discipline. Some journals are more highly regarded than others.
Journal articles take a long time to publish and have to go through the peer review process so you will not find recent events discussed in them. It typically takes at least 18 months from starting to write the article to getting it published.
Journal articles should be used in nearly all assessments and are usually the bedrock of a good assessment. It can be tricky to tell at a glance if you’re reading a journal article or a general webpage. Learn how to identify a journal article in our interactive tutorial.
Magazine articles (trade articles, industry articles)
Magazine articles are usually aimed at practitioners in a particular industry and are usually focused on issues and innovations in that industry.
They are usually fairly current at the time of publication with stories coming out a few weeks or months after an event. However, they are not always subjected to the same level of scrutiny and polish as journal articles.
Magazine articles are good to use when you are looking for information on the current state of an industry or profession but they should be backed up with Journal articles in most cases.
Newspapers, entertainment magazines and news sites
Newspapers and news site stories are good for very current events and for looking at how events are presented to the public.
These types of resources are very current when written, usually less than a week after the event. However, it is rare for the stories to be updated with new information that is discovered over a week after the event.
These articles and stories are best used to confirm a specific fact about an event eg a bankruptcy date, or to see how an event was portrayed to the public as it happened. However, outside these uses you should be cautious about using them in your university writing and avoid relying on them excessively.
Encyclopedias and dictionaries (reference books, Wikipedia)
These resources have brief descriptions (1 paragraph to 5 pages) of a topic giving an overview of the topic or providing a definition. Often provide a list of related articles which will give more depth.
These resources are usually current when written but print resources can date quite quickly and Wikipedia’s quality varies depending on the volunteers editing each given page.
Unless you actually need a definition you should not include this type of information directly in your work at the university level. Instead use these to help you understand the overall shape and structure of the topic to allow you to carry out more specific research.
Websites
Remember to evaluate websites carefully using the guidelines below:
- Government and research sites
These websites contain a wealth of reliable and factual information and often contain original research reports. Usually up to date, these make good sources for your assessments and are almost as good as Peer reviewed articles in an academic setting.
- Corporate and business sites
These websites usually want to sell you something or encourage you to invest in their company, so they can be slightly biased. They can be useful for market share, product or investor information and looking at how the company presents itself to the world. This sort of site can be used in your assessments, especially when doing business topics. They should not be relied upon as your primary source of information in most cases.
- Informal sites including social media
These sites are fun and friendly and the information on them is usually presented informally. The accuracy and the reliability of the information is very low on most of these sites. Don’t use these sites unless you are writing about public perception of a topic or you are very sure of the reliability of the material.
If your lecturer says not to use internet resources this is the type of site they really want you to avoid!
So, you have found some results that look like they might be useful!
First look at the content critically to see if it will help you answer your assessment task or research question. Once you have decided that the content is relevant to you, the next step is to evaluate whether these are academically appropriate resources for your assessment.
The following are some of the criteria you may want to consider in the evaluation of your resources:
Authority/Reliability
Questions to consider
- Who wrote the resource?
- What are their credentials/qualifications, experience, background?
- What else has this author written?
- What is the author’s reputation among their peers?
- Have you seen the author’s name cited in other sources or bibliographies?
- Is the author associated with a reputable institution or organisation?
- Who is the publisher?
- Is the publisher a commercial or academic organisation?
Where to find possible answers
- Search the author’s name in LibrarySearch or a database to find other papers they’ve written, or find out more about them in a search engine such as Google
- Check out the organisations the authors work for.
Objectivity
Questions to consider
- Is there a particular bias? For example, are they promoting a particular political or social idea?
- Does the author state the goals of the publication, eg to educate or inform; persuade or advocate?
- Is the author is affiliated to a particular organisation? Is this evident in the content? Would working for that organisation skew their thinking? For example, research sponsored by a fast-food company might downplay the health risks of fast food.
Where to find possible answers
- Read the foreword, preface, abstract, introduction, or conclusion of the work and check the reference list
Content/Coverage
Questions to consider
- Is the content central or peripheral to your topic?
- Does the work update other sources, substantiate other materials you have read, or add new information?
- Does it include photographs, illustrations, maps or a bibliography?
- Is there a geographical limit?
- Is there a historical time period?
Where to find possible answers
- Look for possible gaps – check the content matches the title of the resource or information in the introduction
- Compare the resource to other sources found and explore a variety of viewpoints
Purpose/Relevance
Questions to consider
- Does the work address your research topic or meet the requirements of your assessment?
- Is the material primary or secondary in nature?
Primary sources are the original writings and research. Secondary sources are based on primary sources and combine or comment on them. - Is the item scholarly or popular?
Audience
Questions to consider
- What type of audience is the author addressing?
- Is the publication aimed at a specialised or a general audience?
- Is the source too basic, too technical, too advanced, or just right for your needs?
Where to find possible answers
- Check the table of contents, chapter headings, presence of references
- Read the preface, introduction and/or conclusion
Currency
Questions to consider
- Is information current?
- Does it provide the proper historical context for your research needs?
- Has this source been revised, updated, or expanded in a subsequent edition?
Where to find possible answers
- Check the date of publication
- If a web page, check the date the page was created and/or last updated.
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Talk to a learning advisor or attend one of our workshops for help with your study.
