Asking Where It Came From

Imagine two people give you directions to the park. One person has lived in your town for twenty years and walks to that park every weekend. The other person just moved to town yesterday and has never been to the park. Both people are trying to help. But whose directions would you trust more? That is the idea behind checking a source. A source is where a piece of information comes from — and some sources are much more trustworthy than others.

What Makes a Source Trustworthy?

Not all information is equal, even when it sounds very confident. Think about these different places you might get information: a doctor who studied medicine for ten years, a random stranger on the street, a library book that scientists helped write, a note someone scribbled with no name on it. A trustworthy source has a few things in common: It comes from someone who actually studied or experienced the topic. A doctor knows about medicine. A builder knows about buildings. It can be checked by other people. Good information can be looked up and confirmed in multiple places. It is honest about what it does not know. Trustworthy sources say things like 'scientists are still studying this' instead of pretending everything is certain. It does not have a secret reason to trick you. Some sources might want to sell you something or make you feel a certain way — that can make them less reliable.

Here is a helpful way to think about it: imagine information is food. You would not eat food that had been sitting out all day in the sun with no packaging and no one watching it. You would want food from a clean kitchen with people you trust. Information is the same. You want it to come from a clean, careful, trustworthy place. Some great sources for kids: a librarian or library book, a trusted adult like a teacher or parent, a well-known children's science magazine, a museum or science center, a website that names its experts and explains where it got its information.