Evaluation is an essential part of every stage of a systematic information search process. The search results list which is produced after a completed search is often the first object for evaluation and for that purpose databases contain different useful functions for classification and analysis. The size of the list of results - are there too many or too few references - can be affected by many factors, and the amount or relevance can be increased, for example, by modifying your own approach to searches.
When evaluating a single reference, you should pay attention to the relevance, reliability, objectivity, quality, coverage and the age of the reference. It is also significant to know how to access the material - a book, full article, patent etc. The evaluation of search results is an essential part of scientific information gathering and it is also a basis for eventual current awareness searches.
