Learn how to find credible sources with our guide. We cover practical ways to evaluate authors, spot bias, and use digital tools to verify information.

Do not index

Knowing where to look for information is half the battle in MUN. It’s about separating the solid, verifiable facts from the noise. I always tell my delegates to think of it like building a house: you start with a strong foundation of scholarly sources, frame it out with reputable mainstream news, and maybe, just maybe, use social media to get a sense of the public mood—never for the actual bricks and mortar.

This approach isn't just for a conference; it’s a crucial skill for building a solid argument on any topic.

The Hierarchy of Trustworthy Sources

So, where do you begin? Think of your sources on a scale of reliability. Not everything you find online carries the same weight, and knowing the difference is what separates good research from a collection of random claims.

I've found it helpful to visualize this as a pyramid. At the very top, you have the most rigorous, heavily vetted information. As you go down, the quality can get a lot shakier.

This simple model is your North Star. It reminds you to prioritize academic work and professional reporting over a random tweet or a blog post with an agenda.

How Trust and Reality Often Collide

It's interesting to see where people actually go for information versus where the most credible sources live. A recent global survey found that 63% of adults put their trust in search engines for news. That's a bit higher than the 58% who trusted traditional media outlets.

Unsurprisingly, social media platforms ranked as the least trusted sources, a sentiment particularly strong in Europe and North America. If you're curious, you can dig into the full global survey data on trust in news sources.

To make this even clearer, here's a quick breakdown of common source types and where they generally fall on the credibility spectrum.

Quick Guide to Source Types and Trust Levels

This table gives you a quick reference for sizing up a source on the fly.

Source Type	Typical Credibility Level	Best For
Peer-Reviewed Journals	Very High	In-depth data, scholarly analysis, and scientific findings.
Government Reports	High	Official statistics, policy details, and national data.
NGO/IGO Reports	High	Humanitarian data, field reports, and specialized research.
Reputable News Outlets	Moderate to High	Current events, expert interviews, and investigative journalism.
Think Tank Publications	Variable	Policy analysis and expert commentary (check for bias).
Opinion/Editorial Pieces	Low to Moderate	Understanding a specific viewpoint or argument, not for facts.
Social Media & Blogs	Very Low	Gauging public opinion or finding leads to primary sources.

Think of this as your starting point. It’s not a rigid set of rules, but a framework to help you make smarter, faster decisions as you wade through the sea of information out there.

How to Evaluate Author and Publication Credibility

A source is only as strong as the person or organization behind it. So, before you dive deep into the content itself, the very first thing you need to do is vet who created it. This isn't just about a quick name check; it's about really understanding the author's authority and the publication's reputation.

Think of it this way: you'd take advice from a seasoned diplomat over a random person on the street, right? The same logic is crucial for your MUN research. Is the author a recognized expert with years of relevant experience, or are they just another loud voice online?

Digging into an Author's Credentials

First things first, look into the author. A quick search can tell you a lot about their professional background, education, and where they work. But don't just stop at a fancy title or a Ph.D. You're looking for relevance. An expert in 18th-century art history, for example, probably isn't the go-to source for an article on cybersecurity policy.

Here’s a quick mental checklist I always run through:

Affiliation: Is the author tied to a reputable university, a known research institution, or a major organization like the United Nations or the World Health Organization?

Publication History: Have they written other books or articles on this topic? A solid history of peer-reviewed work is a huge green flag for deep expertise.

Online Footprint: What do their professional profiles on LinkedIn or university faculty pages say? These should back up their claimed expertise.

This simple process helps you separate a genuine authority from someone who just happens to have a strong opinion. For a more detailed breakdown, you should definitely read our full guide on how to evaluate sources for MUN research.

Assessing the Publication’s Reputation

After you've checked out the author, it's time to turn your attention to where the information was published. Even a credible author writing for a questionable platform should give you pause. The publisher is the gatekeeper, and their reputation and standards tell you a ton about the information's reliability.

Major news organizations like Reuters or the Associated Press live and die by their journalistic standards and rigorous fact-checking. Academic publishers such as Oxford University Press or Springer are famous for their tough peer-review process, where other experts in the field tear an article apart before it ever sees the light of day. For scholarly work, that's the gold standard.

A fantastic tool for this part of your research is Google Scholar. It’s a quick way to find an author's entire publication history and, more importantly, see how often their work is cited by other academics. This gives you a clear snapshot of their influence and standing in their field, helping you confidently decide if they're a credible source for your research.

Analyzing Content for Bias and Accuracy

So, you’ve confirmed the author and publication seem legit. Great. But your work isn't done—in fact, the real detective work is just beginning. Now it's time to put the content itself under the microscope.

Even a top-tier expert can write a biased piece, whether they mean to or not. This is where you learn to read between the lines, questioning the message, the language, and the so-called "evidence" they present. Think of it this way: is the source genuinely trying to inform you, or is it trying to sell you on a specific point of view? The difference can be subtle, often hiding in plain sight.

Uncovering Bias and Verifying Claims

Bias isn't always a bad guy in a trench coat; it can be subtle, unintentional, and baked into how someone sees the world. Your job is to spot it so you can account for it in your research.

Start by paying close attention to the language. Is it neutral and objective? Or is it loaded with emotionally charged words and persuasive adjectives? A huge red flag is any argument that conveniently ignores the other side of the story. A credible source will acknowledge counterarguments and different perspectives. They build their case on a foundation of evidence, not just emotion.

If an article feels more like a rally cry than a balanced report, it’s time to be skeptical. This is where cross-referencing becomes your best friend. Seriously, never take a critical piece of information from a single source.

See a shocking statistic or a bold claim? Your immediate instinct should be to find at least two other independent, reliable sources that say the same thing. This process, sometimes called triangulation, is your best defense against misinformation.

The Critical Role of Citations and Data

Transparency is a hallmark of good research. People who have done their homework are usually proud to show you how they did it. Look for a bibliography, a reference list, or footnotes that point you back to the original information. If a source makes grand claims but offers zero proof, that's a major problem.

But even when you see citations, don't stop there. A study by the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre dropped a bombshell: of ten widely used global corruption figures, none were fully verifiable, and six were seriously flawed. This shows how easily bad data can get passed around, even by sources that seem trustworthy. You can read the full analysis on the credibility of corruption statistics for a masterclass in why you should always question the numbers.

To sharpen your skills, it helps to clearly see the difference between a factual statement and an opinion colored by bias.

Fact vs Opinion and Identifying Bias

The table below breaks down what to look for when you're trying to figure out if you're reading an objective report or a persuasive argument.

Characteristic	Objective/Factual Language	Biased/Opinionated Language
Tone	Neutral, impartial, and informative.	Emotional, persuasive, and subjective.
Evidence	Presents verifiable facts, data, and citations.	Relies on personal beliefs, assumptions, and anecdotes.
Language	Uses precise and unambiguous words.	Employs loaded terms, exaggeration, and generalizations.
Example	"The policy led to a 15% decrease in emissions."	"The disastrous policy completely failed to protect our planet."

By keeping these distinctions in mind, you can start to peel back the layers of an argument and separate solid facts from persuasive fluff. This is how you build your own arguments on a rock-solid foundation of accuracy.

Is This Source Still Relevant? Checking for Timeliness

Information comes with an expiration date. An outdated source can sink your argument just as fast as a biased one, especially when you're dealing with topics that evolve by the minute. For MUN, making sure your evidence is current isn't just a good habit—it's a critical part of building a credible case.

Think about it. Let's say your committee is tackling the regulation of artificial intelligence. A detailed report from 2015 would have been insightful then, but today it's a historical document. The entire field has changed. Relying on that old data would leave your position papers and speeches full of holes that a sharp delegate will tear right through. For fast-moving topics like tech, global health, or international security, the newer, the better.

But this isn't a hard-and-fast rule. Context is everything. If you're debating the historical precedent of a UN resolution, a foundational document from 1948 is far more powerful than a recent blog post that summarizes it. The trick is to match the source's age to what you're trying to prove.

How to Find the Publication Date

Sleuthing out the publication date is a skill you need to master. It’s not always obvious, but here’s where to look:

News Articles & Blog Posts: This is usually the easy one. Check right under the headline or at the top of the page for a date stamp.

Academic Journals: The publication year and volume number are almost always on the first page of the article or listed clearly in the database entry.

Reports & White Papers: Scan the cover page, the title page, or the footer for a publication or copyright date.

What if there’s no date? That’s a major red flag. If the author didn't think it was important to tell you when they wrote it, you should question why. Look for other clues, like references to specific events ("after the 2022 summit...") or links that are now dead. An undated source is often not worth your time.

The 60-Second Relevance Test

Okay, so you've found a source and it's recent. Great. But is it actually useful? A perfectly credible, up-to-the-minute article is worthless if it doesn't directly help you answer your research questions. One of the biggest time-wasters for new delegates is reading irrelevant material cover-to-cover.

This simple habit is your best filter. In just a minute, you can grasp the source's main argument, its scope, and its key findings. If it aligns with your country's position or gives you the data you need, fantastic—add it to your research folder. If not, you can ditch it guilt-free and move on, saving yourself hours of prep time.

Using Digital Tools for Smart Verification

With so much information flying around, you need a few good allies to help you confirm what’s real and what isn’t. Learning to use a handful of digital tools and tricks will make your verification process faster, sharper, and a whole lot more effective. It's about getting past a basic search and adopting a smarter way to find credible sources.

This is your practical toolkit for becoming a more efficient, confident researcher and making sure every piece of data you use is rock-solid.

Mastering Advanced Search Techniques

A simple Google search is just the starting line. If you want to dig up primary documents and true expert analysis, you have to start using advanced search operators. These are just simple commands you type into the search bar to filter your results with surgical precision.

For instance, searching for site:.gov "climate change policy" tells Google to only show you results from U.S. government websites that contain that exact phrase. This simple trick is a game-changer for finding official reports and data.

Here are a few essential operators you should start using right away:

"Quotation marks": Forces a search for the exact phrase.

site: Limits your search to one specific website or domain (e.g., site:un.org).

filetype: Looks for specific kinds of documents, like PDFs or presentations (e.g., filetype:pdf).

These small tweaks cut through the internet noise and lead you directly to high-quality, authoritative content. It's a simple upgrade to your whole research process. In that same spirit of working smarter, you can also explore the best AI for MUN to speed up your prep.

Leveraging Fact-Checking Websites

Before you build a whole argument around a surprising statistic or a controversial claim, take a minute to run it by a trusted fact-checking organization. These websites are dedicated to investigating claims from politicians, public figures, and the media. Honestly, they’re an indispensable tool for any modern researcher.

Think of them as a neutral third party that can confirm or debunk information for you. Some of the most respected fact-checkers out there include:

Snopes: One of the oldest and most famous fact-checking sites, covering everything from politics to wild urban legends.

PolitiFact: This Pulitzer Prize-winning site focuses on verifying political claims and rating them on its "Truth-O-Meter."

FactCheck.org: A project from the Annenberg Public Policy Center that acts as a watchdog for factual accuracy in U.S. political discourse.

Tapping into Academic Databases

When you need the absolute highest level of credibility—especially for scientific, medical, or highly technical topics—you have to get into peer-reviewed research. These are articles that have been picked apart and scrutinized by other experts in the same field, making them the gold standard for factual accuracy.

The good news is, many powerful academic databases are free to access. Start your search with these powerhouses:

Google Scholar: A straightforward way to search broadly for scholarly literature across almost any discipline.

JSTOR: A massive digital library packed with academic journals, books, and primary source documents.

PubMed: An incredible resource with more than 36 million citations for biomedical literature, life science journals, and online books.

Getting comfortable with these tools will seriously elevate the quality of your research, giving you the robust evidence you need to build a winning case in any debate.

Answering Your Top Research Questions

Even the best delegates run into tricky situations during research. You've got the basics down, but what about those specific questions that always seem to come up when you're deep in the weeds of a topic? Let's clear the air on some of the most common ones.

So, Can I Use Wikipedia?

Let’s be honest, we all start there. Think of Wikipedia as your research launchpad, not the final destination. Because its content is crowdsourced, you can't treat it like a primary academic source. Never, ever cite Wikipedia directly in a position paper.

But here’s the pro-tip: its real value is hidden at the bottom of the page. Scroll down to the "References" section. This is a potential goldmine of direct links to the high-quality sources you actually need—the government reports, academic studies, and news articles. Use Wikipedia as a roadmap to find the real treasure, not as the treasure itself.

How Can I Spot a Trustworthy Website?

Beyond just reading the content, the website itself can give you a ton of clues about its reliability. You just need to know what to look for.

Check the URL: Look at the end of the web address. A domain ending in .gov (government) or .edu (an educational institution) is almost always a solid bet. A .org (non-profit) is often reliable, but you'll want to dig a bit deeper into who they are. Be more cautious with .com sites.

Who's Behind the Curtain? A trustworthy site isn't shy. Look for an "About Us" page that clearly spells out the organization’s mission, its leadership, and how it's funded. If you can't figure out who is running the show, you have to question their agenda.

Is There an Author? Credible articles are rarely anonymous. An author’s name should be front and center. A quick Google search on them can tell you if they're actually an expert in the field.

Look at the Details: Does the site look professional? Is the writing free of glaring typos and grammatical errors? Most importantly, do they cite their sources? Good sources show their work.

What’s the Big Deal with Primary vs. Secondary Sources?

Getting this right is fundamental to building a powerful argument. The difference really comes down to how close the source is to the actual event or data.

A primary source gives you the raw, unfiltered information. It’s a firsthand account. Think of things like an original scientific study, a historical document like the UN Charter itself, a personal letter, or a journalist's report from the scene.

A secondary source, on the other hand, interprets, analyzes, or summarizes those primary sources. Textbooks, most news articles, and documentaries are classic examples. For the strongest, most convincing research, your goal should always be to track down the primary source. It’s the closest you can get to the ground truth.

How Many Sources Does It Take to Verify a Fact?

There isn't a single magic number, but here’s a rule of thumb I’ve relied on for years: try to verify any critical fact or statistic with at least three independent and credible sources.

The key word there is independent. You want to avoid sources that are all just quoting each other. For example, if you find a statistic reported by a major news agency like Reuters, see it again in an official UN report, and then find it analyzed in a peer-reviewed academic journal, you can feel very confident that it’s accurate.

Once you have all these great sources, make sure you're giving them proper credit. For a complete rundown, check out our guide on how to cite sources in your work.

At Model Diplomat, we know that strong research is what separates the good delegates from the great ones. Our platform is built to help you slice through the noise, giving you vetted information and expert analysis so you can build your case on a foundation of solid evidence. Walk into your next committee with the confidence that only comes from being truly prepared.

How to Find Credible Sources and Evaluate Information