Writing 101: Preventing Pandemics

1. Type in your keywords into the Google Search box.

2. Identify Source Types from Your Google Search

A Google search will typically provide a wide range of sources including websites, news articles, blog posts, images, videos, and sometimes even documents like PDFs, depending on your search query, with the potential to access information from personal websites, company websites, news organizations, social media platforms, and government websites. 

Key points about Google search sources:

• Variety: Google searches across the entire web, offering diverse sources like personal blogs, news sites, academic publications (if using Google Scholar), and commercial websites. 
• Evaluation needed: Due to the broad range of sources, users need to critically evaluate the credibility and reliability of the information found. 

Specific types of sources you might find on Google:

• News articles: Recent news stories from various publications
• Wikipedia pages: Encyclopedic entries on various topics
• Blog posts: Personal opinions and perspectives on a topic
• Company websites: Official information about businesses
• Government websites: Public information from government agencies
• Academic articles (via Google Scholar): Peer-reviewed research papers
• Images and videos: Visual content related to your search query

3. ALL sources found through a Google search should be evaluated for their credibility:

Use the following criteria, as well as other methods (ex. CRAAP Test) to determine whether a source of information is reliable:

4. Not All Information Is Created Equal: Less Credible Google Sources

However, not all information on Google is reliable. Anyone can publish information online, and not all websites follow rigorous standards for accuracy, objectivity, or thorough fact-checking. Popular sources are not considered credible, but, may lead you to credible sources. For example, a Wikipedia entry with valid references.

5. Understand Which Source Types Are Considered Credible

Below is a table listing the many reliable sources that you can use for your epidemic research.

6. The Categories of Grey Literature

Grey literature sources are important for researching epidemics because they often include up-to-date reports, government documents, organizational and industry-produced reports that are not typically published through traditional commercial channels

In the table below, the credibility of Grey Literature sources are highest going from left to right