Check out some of these Shakespeare related websites in order to get your wheels turning and gather up keywords to use in searching library databases!

You are required to use reliable sources, including books, articles, and websites.  How do you know if a source is reliable?  Here are a few questions you can ask yourself in order to determine if a source is reliable:

Who?

• Who is the author?
• What degrees or experience does the author have?
• Is the author an expert in that field?
• Is the author affiliated with a particular institution?

What?

• Is the article or journal scholarly/peer-reviewed?
  (Scholarly/peer-reviewed articles are written by experts in that field and then reviewed by other experts in that same field for validity, accuracy, and overall quality prior to being published.)
• Does the author cite his/her sources?
• If yes, are they credible sources?

When?

• When was the source published?
• Is currency important to your topic?

Why?

• Did the author publish this source with a particular agenda in mind?
• Based on the author's word choice and tone, does the author have any particular bias?

Why do I need to evaluate my sources? Because your paper is only as good as your sources.

Let's use a practical example to illustrate this.  Pretend you are fixing up an old car, and you'd like to sell it for a small profit.  A lot of parts in the car don't work, so you need to buy some to get it up and running.  Can you go to the junkyard and just get any old parts?  No, not if it you want it to run. 

First, you need to have an understanding of how that particular car works, and then you need to be sure that you have good quality parts.  You don't want the car to break down right after someone buys it.  The car will only be as good as the parts that you put into it.

Writing a paper is like fixing up that car.  You can't just use any old source that you find on the Internet or in the library's databases.  First, you need to have an understanding of your topic or argument.  Then you need to be sure that you pick sources that are not only appropriate to your thesis, but ones that are also of good quality.  Like the car, you don't want your paper breaking down halfway through!

Here are tips and guidelines for evaluating sources.