Credible Criteria

What makes a source Credible?

In all honesty, sometimes it depends on what you're looking at and what you're looking for that determines credibility. If you are looking for information on a new video game coming out, the sources that might be credible for that information might not be credible for information on dogs, for instance. So, to make sure you're looking at a credible source here are some criteria you should follow:

Authority

What makes this source an authority on the topic? What kind of authority does the author have on this topic? If you're looking up an article on medieval European history, is the author a historian, or are they a nerd on the internet? While a nerd on the internet might know their stuff, for this site at least, we wouldn't consider them a credible source of information. You're better off looking up a historian who has spent many years researching, writing, and learning about medieval history!

Accuracy

How accurate is this information? Is it being used by other sources? Where is this source getting their information from? Are these answers the same as answers on other sites? It is important to make sure your information is correct, and while sources like Wikipedia might not always be wrong, they're not always right either. It's always good to double-check your information!

Objectivity

What are this source's biases? How objective are they trying to be? Is this an opinion piece or a statistical information chart? Everything anyone ever made has some biases it has to overcome. Humans are essentially incapable of being bias and opinion free, no matter how hard they try. So, while it is impossible to find information that is without bias, being aware of what the source's biases are is very important. Are they trying to persuade you to buy their project? Support their candidate? It doesn't necessarily mean the information is wrong, but you can get a better grasp of their intentions and possibly the validity of their information if you can figure out their biases.

Currency

How new is this information? What year did this come out? Now, we're not trying to say that old sources aren't good sources, we're saying that more recent sources have the most recent information. We know a lot more about the world than we did ten, twenty years ago. Maybe we haven't found anything new on the topic, but it is still safer to look at more current information than risk your information being out of date.