How do you rate a reference as good or not, to cite it in your research?

Six questions to help you judge if the reference is good to cite in your research or not

 Find reliable sources

There are three reasons to find sources for your research paper:

 1. To provide you with basic information about your topic.

 2. To support your argument or conclusions.

 3. To make a point that is different from your argument or conclusions.

Six questions to ask about the sources: who, what, when, where, why and how.

With these three reasons in mind, it's important to find sources that you can reliably use to make your paper. For every source you find, ask yourself these six questions:

 Who is the author? What makes him qualified to speak on this topic? Has this author published before? Have you noticed the name of this author referenced in other sources, which suggests that the author is influential in the field? You may need to do a little internet research to find out more about the author.

 What does their list of references look like? Authors from reliable sources will take the time to include a complete and properly formatted list of references. Look at the number of sources they cite, but also check the quality of those sources.

 How reliable are these sources? Anytime a source is based on other reliable sources that is fine, and a source whose argument is based entirely on unreliable sources is itself untrustworthy.

When was the source created? In general, modern sources are more reliable, especially in rapidly developing fields such as most sciences. However, in other areas, the oldest sources, such as the humanities, may be the most reliable. So consider what field you're writing in and if using outdated information is a risk.

Where did you find the source? Does the source appear on an academic site, such as an online journal database or college library? Or does it appear on a seemingly non-academic or social media site, like Facebook?

Why was the source created? What is the author's goal? Does the author try to inform the public of factual information? Is the author trying to persuade the audience to agree with him? Is the author just trying to entertain the audience? Make sure the author's goal lines up with yours.

How relevant is the source to your topic? Choose only the resources that you can actually use. Don't force yourself to use a resource just because you need to use a number of sources - your readers will find out.

Source: Document published by the University of Arkansas,