Evaluating Retrieved Results
From Nulisbus
Evaluation of Results
Evaluating your results is just as important as searching for them in the first place. Just because you have retrieved a result does not necessarily mean that it will be of use to you in your studies. Ask yourself these questions when you are looking at a search result.
Is the information:
- From a reliable source?
- Are you sure that the information has been taken from a reliable source? Online resources subscribed to by Napier can be assumed to be reliable; however, as anyone can post anything on the internet, you have to be careful that the information is genuine. How do you know this? Well, the web address can help, e.g. suffixes such as .gov.uk or .ac.uk are UK Government and academic website address endings and so to a certain degree you can trust these sites.
- Useful for the problem in hand?
- Is the source that you have retrieved likely to provide information which will actually be useful for what you need? The information may have been retrieved as a result of your search, but is it actually relevant?
- Date of publication appropriate?**Is the information correct for the timescale you may have set yourself? If, for example, you are only looking at a subject over the last 5 years, is an article from 7 years ago relevant? Similarly, if an article is 7 or 8 years old has the information in it been superseded?
- Obtainable?
- If the information is in abstract form, can you easily access the full text? If not, how long would it take to get access? Can it be accessed before your deadline?
- Level of information correct?
- Too simple/advanced? Is the information within your retrieved result pitched at the right level for your work?
- Fresh information?
- Do you know this already? If you already know the information, and if it has not added to your research, do you really want to use it?
