• Green: appropriate resources for your essay/assignment.

• Orange: may be appropriate; consider carefully where the resource was located, how reliable it is, and why you are using it. Use sparingly.

• Red: Very unlikely to be appropriate, unless identified by your lecturer as a resource they wish you to look at.

Other questions to consider:

• How much information do you need? Lecturers often give guidelines on the number of sources you should use.
• Has your lecturer specified a minimum number of academic or scholarly resources? Scholarly resources are peer-reviewed journal articles or academic texts/book chapters. (nb. Items like standards and patents are not considered scholarly resources, but are appropriate supplementary materials to use in your assignments).
• Do you need current information or is older material relevant? Sometimes you might need both, as you might have to give both the historic background and the current situation of a topic. Consider whether you need primary sources that give an original account of research, or secondary sources that are interpretations of someone else's work.