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?
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.
You can also read book reviews, where an expert book critic has read, evaluated, analyzed, and written up their opinion of the book and its author as a result.
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.
Finding Information & Book Reviews on the Book for Evaluating Book Authors
Sometimes you can find author credentials right on the book itself! Here is a picture of a dust jacket (the cover on the outside of a hard-cover book), laid out flat:
On the left you see the inside back flap which typically contains information about the author, including other publications they have written, their career, and even their education. For paperback books you typically find this information on the back cover.
Also notice on the back of the book there are quotes from people that appear to be book reviews. However, you should not rely on just these reviews because in order to help sell the book they will only put the positive comments on the back. You need to check other book reviews to see whether there are negative reviews that question the credibility of the book.
Digital Tools for Evaluating Authors and Finding Book Reviews
You can use library databases and the Internet to help you find information about the author of the book and book reviews.
There are 3 databases 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.
- EBSCO's Academic Search Complete will allow you to search the title of the book and its author and then limit the results to book reviews.
- Gale Literature will allow you to search the title of the book and its author to get both author biographies and book reviews. This database is my favorite because you get both with one search.
Sometimes you may check all three of these databases and still not find the author. In that situation, you will need to search the Internet using a search engine such as 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.