Finding Good, Current Sources
- Make sure you're using a reliable source! Use the CRAAP test.
- No matter what the copyright date of the website is, check the dates on the references and sources listed for the information.
- The website might have been updated recently, but that doesn't mean that the sources are current.
- If there are no sources, then not only do you have no idea how old the information is, you also have no idea where it came from.
- (Current is here defined as dating to 2012 or later - information about health topics is dangerous if it's out of date!)
- Figure out what organizations keep statistics on your topic, and then search their websites. Go straight to the source.
- Use search operators like site:.gov or site:.org to limit your search on Google.
- You can get fancy with this - try something like site:stopbullying.gov statistics 2012..2016 to search just the Stop Bullying website for articles mentioning statistics and any year between 2012 and 2016.
Citing Your Sources
- Citing a website should look like this.
Author Name. “Name of the Webpage.” Name of the Website, Publication Date. URL. - Example:
CDC/National Center for Health Statistics. “Obesity and Overweight.” FastStats, June 13, 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm - Go to the Citation Help tab above for guides and more resources. Remember, you need to cite everything you use - pictures are information, too, since they help to communicate with your audience. (And find the actual source of images you find using Google!)
Recommended Resources
- Here are a few sites from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get you started:
- NIH
- NIH's MedlinePlus Health Topics
- NIH's Mental Health Information
- CDC's National Center for Health Statistics
- CDC's FastStats
- CDC's Data & Statistics by Topic
- CDC: Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2015
- For background information, try these databases:
- Opposing Viewpoints in Context (Go to Browse Topics for curated lists of articles on a variety of issues, many of which relate to teens and students.)
- Health and Wellness Resource Center
- Health Reference Center Academic
- Additional source of survey data: Pew Research Center - Notice that their search function lets you filter by a date range, so you can narrow it down to recent information!