How to Evaluate a Book

Just because something is in print does not mean that it’s a good, reliable, authoritative, appropriate source of information for your research. Listed below are some important criteria to consider when evaluating a book – or any information source – for your research.

Criteria	Suggestions for how to determine whether or not the book meets the criteria
Content Does it cover your subject?	read the book jacket scan table of contents & chapter headings look for topic keywords in the index read Introduction & Preface
Date Do you need very recent information or a current perspective on an old issue or event? Or do you need an account of an event from the time it actually happened?	check recency of publication date & sources in bibliography
Authority Is the information reliable? Is the information authoritative?	read book jacket look for information about the author in biographical or book review sources check for presence of a bibliography, footnotes, end notes or sources cited in text
Level of difficulty Is the information written at a level you can understand and use? Who is the intended audience: the scholar/specialist or the lay person?	look up unfamiliar terms in a dictionary is the vocabulary too technical or scholarly for your purposes? is the vocabulary too elementary for college-level research?
Purpose for writing What is the bias/perspective of the work?	read the Preface & Introduction check the background/reputation of the author in biographical sources read reviews or other critiques of the book