Physics Course in Information Retrieval

The information source may be evaluated before you start using it. Its first evaluation is the exact interpretation of bibliographical description. Bibliographical descriptions for books, periodicals, articles from journals, individual data bases or Internet pages contain such information like: author, title, place and year of publication, publisher, in case of articles from journals - also journal title.

PRELIMINARY EVALUATION

Date of publication
You will find the date of publication located on the title page, below the publisher’s name. In Internet it is usually located on the first page. If the branch of knowledge, you are interested in, is developing rapidly it is important to get the most current materials.

Edition
Is this the first edition of the publication or it is maybe a reissue or a supplement? Large number of issues and a few of editions of this publication will mean that this information source is valid and reliable.

Publisher
Remember, that if the publisher is popular and holds a good reputation it does not mean that all his publications will be of high quality.

Periodical title
Is it a scientific, popular-scientific or popular journal? Is it often cited by other information sources?

Scope
Is the publication, you are analysing, entirely or partially describing the subject of your interests? Is this publication written directly on the basis of results of researches (primary source) or on the basis of other publications (secondary source)?

Writing style
Is this information source revealing facts or is it propagated? Not always it is easy to separate facts from opinions. Evaluating the writing style we particularly take note of that if the text is easy to read and understand.

It is not easy to judge the validity of each book, article or Internet page, but it is necessary if we want to use the reliable publications of high standard. The materials presented in our guide through information sources, elaborated in the purpose of the course, were evaluated according to the criterions mentioned above and were marked with one star (good enough), two stars (good) and three stars (very good).