Regardless of where you are getting your information, you need to be aware of a few simple attributes about whatever information you are using.
When evaluating information, here are five helpful considerations:
Currency: timeliness of the information.
Relevance: importance of the information for your need.
Authority: source of the information.
Accuracy: reliability, truthfulness, correctness.
Purpose: reason that the information exists.
Whenever you include someone else’s ideas in a paper or project, you must document or cite the source of the ideas. In other words, if you have learned anything new and include it in your paper, you must give credit to whoever provided the new information. Remember that failure to do so properly is plagiarism.
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