Skip to Main Content

Research Unbound: A Library Orientation for Transfer, Upper-Division, and Graduate Students

This micro-course, which involves a series of online modules, will help you learn about the University Libraries' resources available to you, and will equip you with the skills you need to be an effective researcher.

Evaluating Sources

Evaluating Relevancy

Determining an informational item's relevancy to your needs and purposes is also essential. Just because you find information on your topic does not mean it is useful, appropriate, in line with, related to, or - in other words - relevant to your work!

The diversity of informational resources available, especially through the Internet, means that information that might be suitable for one purpose might not be relevant for another purpose. For instance, if you are researching the portrayal of superheroes in 21st century American movies, the movie times you find through a Google search or on Fandango wouldn't be relevant - but, if you wanted to go to a movie with friends, such information would be indispensable.

As you conduct research for your courses, consider two important points - these will help you determine if a piece of information is relevant:

  • Does this resource truly provide useful information on the topic? That is, does the information you've found help you to understand the topic, consider a new perspective, or think about the information in a different way? If not, it might not be relevant to your research.
  • Will the information from this resource add value to your research, or are you just using it to pad a reference list? Instead, find related but different research or information that can add additional information and value to your work.