Vetting your academic sources is essential. Your academic research depends on you picking sound articles and books to critique and draw upon. If you choose the wrong sources, you run the risk of your entire article being distrusted and thrown out. Using structurally sound articles is even more critical when you are writing for an audience that’s wider than your classroom like at a conference or in a small journal. You want to make sure that your research reflects the time and energy you spent writing your paper.

Today we are going to look at seven things you can look at when you are vetting your academic sources.

As a note: Use your best judgment. Whenever I looked for sources in college and graduate school, I never had to look super hard. Some of these you should look at by default, but you may not have to go so deep. If something doesn’t seem quite right, go through more of these steps until you are satisfied that you are using a good source.

Keep Reading, Darling