Romel Espinel

Reference/Instruction Librarian

Berkeley College Libraries

THINKING INFORMATION&CRITICAL

Validate

Prove

YOUR IDEAS

You’re going to need resources that will

back up what you are trying to argue.

I hope these guys behind

me are reliable.

But who or what source can I trust?

Authority- Who is the author(s)?

Currency- When was it published or how often is a website updated?

Coverage- What kind of information is provided and what kind of sources do they use.

Accuracy-How accurate is the information?

Objectivity – Is the information objective or at least attempts objectivity?

Where can I find these reliable

information sources?

Berkeley Catalog is great place to look for

books for research!

Our subject of study

Hit Search

Your Results Are . . .

If you were to scroll down we

would get more results

Some books that you could

use for research.

You can also search Databases!

Have collected published articles from magazines, academic journals, websites, newspapers, etc.

Are updated regularly as often as every three months

Are organize by subject.

A small word about . . .

Look at all those results!

You can’t use the first two results because

they are from Wikipedia; it’s a

known unreliable information source.

Let’s check out this one.

Who is DPIC? How current is this website? How accurate? How objective?

This takes time to verify this site

Where do you find databases?

Save time with

databases. They’ve been screened for

you.

Opposing Viewpoints database is

excellent for hotly debated and

current issues.

Let’s look up the “death

penalty” again.

If you were to scroll down we

would get more results

Notice how the articles in this database for this topic

are organized.

Let’s look at an article.

If you were to scroll down we

see the full article.

And look! The full citation for this article in MLA format!

Google can’t do that!

Email the Articles to Yourself

Why?

1. Saves time if you need to go back to them.

2. Emailed articles include the citations you need for

your bibliography (works cited).

Fill in the information

and hit Send.

Here it is in my email.

With Citation!