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Library Research Skills: Evaluating Articles: Author

This guide has the same content as the Evaluating Articles workshop.

A is for Author

To evaluate the credibility of a source you need to consider who wrote the information and why should you believe them? Are they an expert on the topic?

Cartoon hand checking off a list with a pencil on a paper titled Credentials Check.

To help you determine whether someone is an expert on a topic you need to check their credentials. To help you understand what those are, you could think of credentials as if they are a person's resume or a biography. Credentials to look for include:

  • Higher education and degrees, such as a Masters (MA, MS, MFA) or a Doctorates (PhD, MD, JD), in the field of study related to your topic.
  • Career history. Do they work with your topic every day as part of their job? Perhaps they teach the subject at a university, conduct research related to the topic, or work in a career directly related to your topic.
  • Other publications they have written, such as other books or articles, related to your topic.

In all cases, you need to not just consider whether they are well educated and well published, but focus on whether those accomplishments are relevant to your topic, making them an expert on your topic.

DAPPR Test rubric section for Author. 3 points if expert. 2 points author well-known organization or qualified journalist. 1 point not an expert but some knowledge. 0 points author not qualified or unclear who wrote.

Finding Information for Evaluating Article Authors

If you find an article using a library database from EBSCO, sometimes the citation information for the article will contain superscript numbers with the authors' names.

EBSCO database article information page with Authors line circled. Author names have superscript numbers.

If you see that, scroll down and look for a section labeled Author Affiliations to see what each superscript number indicates as the author's employer or credentials.

EBSCO database article information page with Author Affiliations line circled.

Often, you can look at the article itself and find information and credentials about the author either at the top or bottom of the article.  This example shows the information about the author given at the bottom of the first page of the article.  Most often, it is a paragraph at the end of the article.

Journal article with a footnote of information about the author circled.

Digital Tools for Evaluating Authors

You can use library databases and the Internet to help you find information about the author. 

The database we recommend searching:

  • Gale Biography in Context will allow you to search the name of the author and get author biographies to help you check their credentials and credibility.

Logo for Gale Biography in Context database.

 

Often you may check this databases and not find the author.  In that situation, you will need to search the Internet using a search engine such as Google.  

Logo for Google.

When you get your Internet search results, don't just rely on the first website listed.  It is best to look for an educational (.edu) website because authors are often university professors, or the website of the author's workplace.  You should not rely on social media accounts where the author can put whatever information they want, whether it is accurate or not.  So, not their Facebook, Instagram, X (formally Twitter), LinkedIn, or Good Reads accounts, or any other social media.