Evaluating Sources Using SIFT  

[You can continue reading the tutorial pages here or you can watch the SIFT Method: Evaluating Sources video and continue the tutorial on the Review page.]

Research isn’t just about finding sources that relate to your topic—you’ll also need to read and evaluate those sources to see if they can help you answer your research question, support your argument, and/or provide reliable information about your topic or a new perspective on your topic.

One helpful method for evaluating source credibility and authority is SIFT: Stop, Investigate, Find, and Trace. SIFT is a simple 4-step method to help you evaluate information that you find online. This method, based on fact-checking strategies, helps you quickly decide whether or not a source is credible and worthy of your attention.