Classics and Archaeology

Evaluating your sources is a critical element of the research process. It is particularly important to evaluate information that you find on the Internet. 

You need to evaluate carefully each source to determine its appropriateness and quality. Use the library's CRITICAL guide to determine if a source is appropriate for your research and to prompt you to think about how you search for and select research materials. This guide supports our commitment to decolonizing information literacy and our focus on I-EDIAA (Indigenous, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Accessibility).  Evaluation criteria may include:

• Credibility: The reliability or accuracy of the information.
• Relevance: The depth and importance of the information.
• Intention: The purpose of the information. 
• Timeliness: The currency of the information.
• I-EDIAA (Indigeneity, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, Accessibility): The voices that are represented.
• Coverage: Does the source address your topic in depth, only partially, or is it an broad overview?
• Authority: The source of the information. Consider the author's background, writings, experience, and positionality.
• Level: The reading and analysis level of the source.

The content created by generative AI, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E, needs to be evaluated just like any other source. The same principles for evaluating information sources apply to generative AI. However, some of the questions we typically ask ourselves about sources may be more difficult to answer when consulting generative AI, because the process it takes to arrive at answers is not public.

Please refer to the library guide Artificial Intelligence to learn more about evaluating AI content.