Skip to Main Content

CST 110: Communicating Effectively, Balli, FA 2024: Evaluate Sources

Videos

Lateral Reading Broken into Steps:

Mike Caulfield's SIFT Method is an approach to evaluating sources that can be used in many contexts, considering the many types of information we encounter on the web in our lifetimes. The videos below outline "The Four Moves" and are all less than 5 minutes, if you are interested in learning more.

Evaluate with the CRAAP Test

The first criteria for evaluation using the CRAAP Test is Currency.

You lose credibility when your audience knows more current information about your topic than you, so to ensure that you're finding information that fits within your time parameters, consider the following questions.

  • When was the information published or last updated? (A common goal for most topics is to find information published with the last 5 years.) 
    • Has newer information been published on your topic? If so, does it provide additional updates that you need to include in your own research?
    • Are links or references to other sources up-to-date?
      • There are countless outdated web pages on the Internet. Every web page should include a copyright date or a “last updated” date.
      • If there are resources linked within your article, are they current or outdated?
  • Is your topic in an area that changes rapidly, like technology or popular culture? If your topic is in a slower-moving field, your expectations for timely information might reflect this.

Next up: Relevance. 

  • Consider your topic when determining relevance.
    • One useful exercise is to shape the scope of your research question ahead of time, and to allow wiggle room for your question to reshape as you learn more. Some of the information you encounter while searching may not be used, but it might provide helpful context or background information (Wikipedia is a common source for this kind of work).
  • Ask yourself if the information you're reading is primarily about your research topic. If it is, then it's likely relevant. If your topic is mentioned briefly within the context of other information, then the source may not be that relevant to you and you can likely find something more useful.
  • Ask yourself:
    • What have I learned from this source? How does what I learned inform my research?
    • How will I use this information? (Read a source over once; then, if you determine it is relevant, take notes and make annotations. This can help you in the long-run as you organize your ideas!)
    • How does this relate to my other sources? Are there any gaps in the information I’ve collected so far, other viewpoints that have not been addressed?

First A in CRAAP: Authority.  

Authority is a measure of how much we trust the author, researcher, or organization that creates the information to be fair, unbiased, thorough, and accurate. How do we evaluate how trustworthy an author is? It's like you're interviewing them for a job; you want to know about the author's education, experience, and qualifications.  

  • You often have to investigate beyond the article itself to find out more about an author's qualifications or the organization they work for. Try using a Google Search to find out more about the author and the publisher. See video #2 on the left, Investigate the Source, for a deeper explanation.

A for Accuracy.

If you present inaccurate information, you will lose credibility with your audience, but how do you know if the information you've found is accurate? You can start by asking yourself these questions:

  • Where does the information come from?
    • Who is the author or publisher? Are they an authority on the subject? Do they have a history of publishing accurate and credible information?
  • Are the original sources of information listed? For example, are there contextual hyperlinks found throughout the information or is there a References/Works Cited page? 
    • If yes, how does the author use that outside information?
    • If not, does the author mention where they have gathered their information at any point? 
  • Has the information been reviewed by other experts?
  • Does the language or tone seem biased? Does the language elicit an emotional response or is it neutral?
    • If the language does seem biased, why is that? What is the author or publisher trying to convince you of? Can you find a more neutral source of information?

The final criteria for evaluation is Purpose.

Determining purpose can sometimes be a tricky process. Start by asking yourself:

  • Why does this information exist? Some possible answers include:
    • To educate readers (inform)
    • To sell you something or to convince you of something (persuade)
    • To provide commentary on a topic (entertain)

A single source can have more than one purpose. A good example of this is the Borowitz Report published by The New Yorker. These articles provide satirical commentary on current events. If you were evaluating this as a source for a paper or project, you'd likely determine that its purpose was to provide entertainment through satirical commentary, to inform readers of current events, and to promote a particular political perspective. 

In summary, the CRAAP Test asks you to evaluate the Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose of an information source.

Fact-Checking & Lateral Reading

Many of the activities the CRAAP Test asks you to do involve seeking information about the same thing from multiple places and performing extra searches to double-check your source. This is called Lateral Reading, and Murphy Library has a guide called Evaluating Information Sources Critically that explains lateral reading further.

Fact-Checking websites:

Check it out: UW-Green Bay Libraries has the Rate My Source tool to help you determine whether your source is appropriate for college research.