Skip to Main Content
 Student after-hours access


 View All Library Hours

BIO 140 - Inquiry Biology for Educators: Spotting Bad Science

This guide should help students build on their research, evaluation, and citation skills in order to complete assignments for this course.

Evaluation Tools

Critically Evaluate

Quality Questions:

  1. Is the author an expert in their field? Who sponsored the article?
  2. Is it current? What is the pub. date?
  3. Is it peer reviewed? 

Content Questions:

  1. What is the research question?
  2. What is the primary methodology used?
  3. How was the data gathered?
  4. How is the data presented?
  5. What are the main conclusions?
  6. Are these conclusions reasonable?
  7. What theories are used to support the researcher's conclusions?

Who is behind the information?

Spotting Bad Science

Click on the image to enlarge and open in a new tab.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

By Compound Interest: http://www.compoundchem.com/2014/04/02/a-rough-guide-to-spotting-bad-science/

Test Your Skills!