Alright. You know how to cite your information, but is it even worth using? Let’s find out. 
How authoritative is it?
Good information is authoritative. That means the person who wrote it knows what they are talking about! Since we can’t interview every author to check that they’re knowledgeable, we have to use some other approaches.
- Who is the author and what are his/her/their credentials?
- Have they published other books/articles?
- Is this book within the expertise of the author?
- How many citations are there, and what is their level of quality?
Let’s ask those questions about our Greenpeace article (feel free to go check it out for yourself, if you’d like). Okay, so our author is… um… hm…. Well, actually, no author is listed on the Greenpeace article. That’s not so strange, though: it’s called a corporate author, so Greenpeace itself gets the attribution. What are their credentials? That’s harder to say. They certainly care about and pay attention to these types of issues, but we don’t know whether the article’s authors have any sort of formal education or work with GMOs, so we can’t really speak to their credentials. This also relates to their expertise: it’s not clear that the author is an expert in GMOs or EU law. They’ve certainly published other articles, so that’s a checkmark in their favor, right? How about citations? Those are… lacking. Instead, we see things like, “The EU public has been massively opposed to genetically engineered food, since the first shipment of GE soya arrived in Europe in 1996,” which gives no indication as to the origin of this statement.
How recent is it?
The timeliness of a source is important, especially when your topic is something new or something that changes frequently—as is the European Union. Ask yourself: When was the article written? You’ll want to make sure that you’re not writing about the 12 Eurozone member states (of course you know that it’s now more than 12…).
What about our Greenpeace article? It is dated from July 2, 2003. That’s not very timely for this sort of topic. Public opinion and public policy can change month to month, no less over the course of a decade.
How biased is it?
Does the author or publisher display any bias? Of course, authors will generally try to make some kind of argument—don’t mistake this for bias! An unbiased source will present facts objectively, and then may offer some interpretation of those facts. A biased source, on the other hand, will present information only as far as it agrees with the author’s preconceived notions.
Discovering bias can sometimes be tricky. Let’s look at the excerpt from the Greenpeace article one more time:
Another concern is that EU member states will not be obliged to act against the contamination of conventional or organic agriculture with GMOs. They “may,” rather than “shall,” take action to prevent neighboring farms from being contaminated.
In the first sentence, the article talks about “another concern,” but doesn’t mention for whom it is a concern. The implication, then, is that it is a concern for everyone—but this might not be true, because some people might not be concerned at all! Similarly, the article refers to “contamination” from GMOs. That word “contamination” has pretty strong negative connotations. Finally, this passage doesn’t just present the fact that member states “may . . . take action to prevent neighbouring farms from being contaminated,” instead adding in the unnecessary “rather than ‘shall’” to indicate some preferable alternative.