KYVL: Information Skills Tutorial, Unit 4: Choosing Sources That Cover the Dates You Need<br class="kaq73uposi3rgd368">
Timeliness
Information Skills Tutorial
Unit 4: Evaluation of Sources
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 Unit 4 Contents 
Topic: Choosing Sources That Cover the Dates You Need


Lesson
Examples
Quiz


Lesson

Here are some ways to find out if your sources fit your research needs in terms of their date of publication.
  • Books, magazines and newspapers will usually be clearly dated.
  • Indexes to periodicals will indicate, somewhere in the introductory pages, what dates are covered. (If you need articles written before the 1980’s, many of today’s electronic periodical indexes will be useless. In this case you will need to visit your library and use older, print indexes.)
  • On web pages, look for the date the information was posted or last revised. Note: the date a web page was posted is NOT necessarily the date the content was written, and a "revision" can be as minor as a corrected typographical error.
  • If the source refers to other information, be sure the information referred to is clearly dated as well. Web sites in particular can be deceiving.


Examples

Here’s a web site in which currency is an issue: Roget’s Thesaurus. This web site is probably updated frequently, so on the surface it would seem to pass the test of timeliness. But here’s the important question: On what edition of Roget’s is this online thesaurus based? Can’t figure it out? Here’s the answer.
Quiz

Introductory pages of indexes (either print or electronic) are important because they tell you.
A. when coverage begins
B. when coverage ends
C. both the beginning and ending of coverage

Which is the most potentially confusing source to date properly?

A. Web sites
B. Books
C. Magazines

Unit 4: 10 of 13


Last Updated: 05/26/2000
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