source-evaluation

Evaluate source credibility by checking who produced it and their basis for knowing, such as a named author or institution with domain standing and an inspectable methodology. For internal corpus items, provenance matters: a decision record or spec outranks an offhand note.

A primary source is the origin of a claim, such as the original study, spec, or announcement, while a secondary source retells it, like a summary article. Primary sources outrank secondary ones for the same claim, and secondary usage should be flagged as second-hand.

Discard a source when you cannot establish who produced it, when a clearly stronger source contradicts it, when it is a circular citation tracing back to a source already in your set, or when it is stale on a recency-critical question. Always note what was discarded and why.

Multiple articles citing the same origin count as one source, not independent corroboration. True corroboration requires two or more independent sources that agree, so always trace citations back to their origins before counting support.

No, recency matters only relative to the question's volatility. Fast-moving topics like prices and versions demand current sources, while stable topics like definitions and history barely depend on recency, so the newest source is not automatically the best.