Hello, my name is Birgitte and I'm an Information specialist at Copenhagen University Library. In this lesson, you will learn how to determine the relevance of a given resource, which is one of the core research skills you need to master when you write your academic papers. When evaluating the quality and credibility of information, you should consider the author, the peer-review status of the work, the day it was published, the publisher, the intended audience and the content. First of all, take a look at the author and consider his or her credibility including academic background, experience, and affiliations, both past, present. For instance, does the material in question fall within the scope of the author's field of expertise? Does the author's name appear on your course list? Or has your supervisor recommended that you consult this particular author of research? These questions will help you assess the author’s level of expertise and overall recognition within the science community. Another way of testing the quality and authority of a given source is to examine the material, If the material has been peer reviewed, which means that it has undergone evaluation by experts. Roughly the peer review process looks like this, a scientist submits an article to a journal whose editor then selects a couple of scholars who knows a lot about the research topic and asked them to review the material in question. These reviewers undertake a critical evaluation of the text, they look at the experimental design, they check the data, assess whether the conclusions are justified and they make sure the article is well written, clear, and concise. They also decide how important the article is, some journals only accept groundbreaking research for publication. Whereas other journals accept research that reflects more modest advances within the research field. If the peer-review is favorable, the article will go through several stages of revision after which it may be published in the journal. When you have explored aspects such as authorship and peer-review status, you might also want to examine whether the material was published. Consider if the text is current, old, or even out of date, when doing this remember that tradition varies from between research fields. Within the technical and natural sciences research evolves very rapidly and material gets outdated quickly. Natural scientists therefore typically demand very up to date and current information. Within the humanities, research generally evolves at a slow pace and resources that were published many years ago may still be highly relevant and in much demand. You can also take a look at the publication history of the resource. If there are several edition the latest edition will be revised to reflect current knowledge at the time of the publication. Just as several editions will indicate that a resource is sought after and maybe even constitutes a standout source within a given research field. Also, take a look a the publisher. If the resource has been published by a famous and well-established publishing house, it implies a certain level of quality. Some publishing houses specialized in particular research fields of specific types of literature and you can use this in your evaluation. Publications by university presses will typically be of an academic nature. In addition, you should consider who the author is trying to reach. It will typically be indicated by the academic level of the text whether the author is addressing the general public or scholars audience. Finally, you should benefit from doing a regular content analysis when you assess the intention of the authors as well as the overall line of reasoning. Analyzing the content, you typically check out the preface, the table of content, the index, and those parts of the text that are particularly relevant to your topic. Also, take the time to double check facts and figures. Are these well documented and can you verify them using sources? Does the text make use of proper citation by using the agreed upon academic standard when it comes to citing sources? You should always try to gain a comprehensive overview of your research topics and never rely on a single viewpoint. But if a given text appears one sided, you should be particularly alert, consider if the line of reasoning is consistent with the arguments and viewpoints you find when you consult other works in the same research field. If an author challenges conventional discourse, you should be especially careful to double check and verify facts. Taking aspects such as authorship, peer review status, date, publisher, and content into consideration will help you assess the quality of a given resource and thereby help you to decide whether or not to use this in your paper. Thank you for watching this video.