FYEX 100 - Headlines, History, and You: Home

Information literacy consists of FIVE abilities and associated skills.  FYEX courses will typically focus on four of those abilities.

1. Source Exploration : Identify the most appropriate sources and information to meet the scope of need.

2. Strategic Searching : Create, execute, and refine search strategies with iteration utilizing search outcomes to find relevant sources and information. 

3. Source Evaluation : Evaluate the credibility of sources to critically select and interpret information relevant to the need. 

4. Synthesis : Contextualize and synthesize selected information to engage in ongoing scholarship and communities of learning and/or practice. 

5. Source Attribution : Contribute to ongoing scholarship and communities of learning and/or practice through ethical reflection, proper attribution, and respect of intellectual property.

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.

The SIFT method is a way to evaluate any information you find, no matter the source, to determine whether it can be trusted and is a credible or reliable source of information. It was developed by Mike Caulfield, and is adapted here via with a CC BY 4.0 license.

S - Stop

Before you use or share a source, stop!

Ask yourself:

• Do you know the website, journal, author, or company?
• What is its reputation?
• What is your purpose? How do you feel?
• What are your biases about this source?

I - Investigate the Source

Make sure that the source you are about to use is reliable - by leaving it and thinking laterally.

Use trusted information to look up information about the author and publisher of your source.

• Go beyond the "About Us" section or other information directly from the source's creators.
• Use Wikipedia or Google to investigate the source and its creators.
• Is this source worth your time to use?

F - Find Other Coverage

Most topics have multiple sources of information about it - go find them!

Find the most trustworthy sources for the information you want to use.

• Can you find a better or more trusted source?
• Can you find a more in-depth source?
• What do trusted sources agree on about this topic?

T - Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to their Original Context

Find the origin of the claims, quotes, data, and other media you want to use.

Click through the links in your source, and use outside sources, to find the origin of the information.

• Can you find the original source? What is its original context?
• Did your original source fairly represent the information?
• Does the extracted information support its original context, or is it being taken out of context?
• Is information being cherry-picked to support an agenda or bias?

There are two main types of sources you will encounter in your research:

• Popular sources convey information to the general public, are often written by journalists or professional writers, use informal language, and may or may not list sources or the author's information. They include magazines, newspapers, and blogs.
• Scholarly sources convey information to specialists in a discipline, use formal language, list their sources and author's information, and often (but not always) undergo review by other experts, known as "peer review." They include academic journal articles, research books, and scientific studies.

Both popular and scholarly sources can be important to your research, but may be used in different ways.

Some newspapers' content will be freely available from their website, while others may require a subscription. The databases below can provide you with articles from major regional and national U.S. newspapers which may otherwise require a subscription.

You have access to thousands of databases through McNairy Library! There are two types of databases:

• Broad databases include a wide variety of source types (both popular and scholarly) that cover numerous areas of study
• Specialized databases cover only a single area of student (such as history) and/or only include a specific type of source

Each type of database can be helpful in your research process, in different ways!