How can you assess the quality of evidence?

It helps to scan documents or their summaries for indications of quality. There are several ways of looking at quality but some useful indicators of quality include:

• Objectivity – is the content balanced or is there some bias?
• Method – how was the information gathered together?
• Relevance – is the information appropriate and relevant to the purpose in hand?
• Provenance – who or what originated the information and are they reliable sources?
• Timeliness – is the information up to date and does this matter in your context?
• Presentation – is the information presented in a clear and readable way?

If you want to find out more about judging the quality of research you can take a look at some examples of quality frameworks by clicking on the find out more icon.