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Coverage

Coverage is a way of exploring all of the previous evaluation criteria in one factor. Coverage looks at whether the source is really the best choice for the job. Imagine that you're doing research on the changes in the Baltimore real estate market over time. Ideally you'll want an article that includes both current and historical information. You'll also get more use of an article that covers Baltimore specifically rather than the entire United States. The article will be even more suitable if it comes from a publication that covers real estate specifically. An article from a specialized real estate journal is likely to have more knowledge of that industry than a general magazine like Time or Newsweek and might be more reliable.

Some questions that will help you evaluate the coverage are:

• What topics are covered in the article? You can often get a sense of this by looking at the abstract or skimming the headings.
• What topics are covered in the publication? You can often get a sense of this by looking at the table of contents.
• How in-depth is the article?
• Does this article relate to my topic? Is it too broad? Too specific?
• Is the article relevant to my specific need?