DEVS 220: Introduction to Indigenous Studies

Evaluating Resources

When selecting sources, be sure to evaluate them to determine whether they are appropriate and relevant to your research.

Your approach to evaluating a scholarly source vs. a community-based source, for example, will be different. Think about why this might be the case with the following questions:

• Why was the source written?
• Who is the author of this work and what are their credentials?  (Do they have lived experience or are their credentials their university degree? Or both?).
• Why was this information created?
• Where is the work being disseminated (i.e. which website? which journal?)
• Whose voices are not present in the source? Does it offer different voices, conflicting viewpoints, or other ways of knowing?
• Who is the intended audience?
• When was the work created?

The Evaluating Sources page includes the CRITICAL guide which will further prompt you to think about how you search for and select research materials. 

Take a look at the video on Evaluating Indigenous Sources for Credibility (Kwantlen Polytechnic University) which discusses how to assess the credibility of a source that includes content created by Indigenous peoples.