Library Research Skills: Evaluating Articles: DAPPR in Action

For the date you need to look for when the article was published. It may be a year, a month and year, or a day, month, and year.  You may need to look at the top of the article or for the date the entire periodical was published.

The article was published in 2017, which is more than five years old, but not necessarily out of date. It scores a 2 on the DAPPR rubric for Date.

In order to learn about the author, Bryant W. Sculos, and whether he is an expert on the influence of Disney's Beauty and the Beast on our culture, you need to read any information given with the article. Under his name with the title of the article you see that he works at Florida International University.

The article also provides a cover page footnote indicating he has a PhD, is an adjunct professor at Florida International University, a contributing writer and editorial board member for The Hampton Institute, and the section editor for Politics of Culture in the publication in which this article is published, Class, Race and Corporate Power.

It would be helpful to know what he teaches or has a PhD in, so you search the Internet (because he was not in the databases we discussed earlier). You find the website for where he works and discover he is an adjunct professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, in the School of International & Public Affairs, at Florida International University.

Based on this information, you determine that although you don't know his PhD's field of study, because he is an adjunct professor who works at a University in the Department of Politics and International Relations, his PhD is likely related to Politics or International & Public Affairs in order for him to qualify for the job. This article is about Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which is relevant to your topic. He has also authored other articles, and is the section editor for Politics of Culture in this publication,  which is relevant to your topic related to culture. As a result, he appears to be an expert and scores a 3 on the DAPPR rubric for Author.

The journal is the publisher of the article. You search the Internet for the journal, Class, Race, and Corporate Power, and see it was published by Florida International University as an academic journal. When you go to the website for the journal and the page for About This Journal, the description claims the journal is a mix of academics and activists, with leftist politics. So, although it was published by a University, it scores a 2 on the DAPPR rubric for Publisher because it is not truly a scholarly journal.

When evaluating the purpose of the article, you read the abstract of the article and also consider the publisher's purpose.  The About This Journal information you read when evaluating the publisher claims that part of its mission is to "advance an eclectic brand of 'leftist' politics." The abstract for the article summarizes the purpose is to understand "the relationship between social responsibility, toxic masculinity, contemporary capitalism, and radical political and economic change."  Because the publisher' purpose seems to be to persuade someone or promote an idea, this article would score a 1 on the DAPPR rubric for Purpose. If the article only shares some opinion, then it could score a 2. It is definitely not unbiased scholarship, so it would not score a 3.

Looking over the article and its abstract, you see a vast majority of the article is relevant to cultural premises of Beauty and the Beast, and your topic of the influence of the movie on our culture. Based on this, it scores a 3 on the DAPPR rubric for Relevancy. It could score less depending on how much it supports the arguments you are making in your research paper or if it doesn't appear to be well-researched.