A comprehensive search is only half the battle. When you search in catalogs, discovery systems, databases and search engines, you are often confronted with a confusing number of results. Hence it is important to keep stay on top of things and to critically review the sources you find in order to assess their usefulness for your work and your research question.
In order to evaluate your sources, you should read them first. However, it is not helpful to work through all sources from start to finish, as this will impede the progress of your work. Have a look at the page on reading strategies, where you will find tips on how to efficiently extract information from academic texts.
There are different approaches to assessing the trustworthiness and usefulness of sources. The News Co/Lab at Arizona State University has compiled a collection of methods on its website.
Here we will look at the so-called CRAAP Test and the SIFT Method.