This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The basic rules for evaluating a source for quality are the same as the "5 W's" of journalism: Who, What, When, Where, and Why.
Who produced the document, image, video, sound file, etc. and what do you know about them, their credentials, and their motives?
What is the factual or emotional content of the source and does it reflect reality?
When was it produced and does that time frame alter its potential usefulness?
Where was it published and does that publisher evaluate sources before publishing them? Does the place of publication reflect on the competence or impartiality of the source? Is this a re-publication and, if so, where was it originally published?
Why was the item produced and published? To educate? To influence? To sell something? To promote the creator?
Use one of the sources below OR one of the Terrorism Specific Resources on the second page of this guide to answer the questions
Document or site selected: _______________________________________________________
Who created it? ___________________________________________________________________________
What is it about? ___________________________________________________________________________
When was it copyrighted or last updated? _______________________________________________________
Where (on what kind of web site) was it published? _____________________________________________
Why was it created? _________________________________________________________________________
Would you feel comfortable using it as a source of information? _____________________________________
Why or why not? ___________________________________________________________________________