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First Year Experience

Library resource guide for first year and new to Augustana students.

Evaluating Sources

"How do we know what we know, and to what extent can we be sure?"

Information literacy is the ability to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use the needed information” and to use the information in an effective, ethical, and legal way once acquired (ALA "Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education").

Learning to properly evaluate sources for yourself is an important counterpoint to the endless skepticism that can get people trapped into conspiracy theory thinking. While the peer-review process helps to screen materials in an academic context, it is still important to apply evaluation skills to scholarly sources, and especially important to apply to popular sources such as news, social media, and other internet sources. This page will help to build a foundation for you to evaluate what you find on the internet and teach you how to do a basic fact check.

Fact Checking Strategies

One way we can evaluate a resource is through the CRAAP test. CRAAP stands for:

C-Currency : Is this source up-to-date?

R-Relevance : Is this source relevant to my research goals?

A-Authority : What is the author's background? What is the publisher known for?

A-Accuracy : Is there information I can fact-check?

P-Purpose : What is the motivation behind this research?

To evaluate your sources, review each one in response to each of the letters in CRAAP. You do not have to have positive answers for each question in order for the source to still be useful for your research, but your overall assessment should help guide whether you feel like the source is trustworthy, credible, and relevant to your specific research purposes. The test also helps consumers of information to identify the rhetorical situations (audience, author, purpose, medium, context, and content) of the media that they consume.

For each letter of the acronym, here are some additional questions we could ask ourselves as we take a closer look at a source:

Currency: 

  • When was the resource written/published? Is this current enough for the purpose of your research? 
  • Is this information up-to-date, or do other sources discredit or update the information given in the resource? If it is not up-to-date, is the information considered foundational to the topic or field of study? 

Relevance: 

  • What is the overall tone of the resource? 
  • Are the language and terminology at an appropriate level for your research and understanding? Is the resource at the appropriate level (data, language, etc) for this project/paper?
  •  Does the resource meet your research needs and goals, as well as the assignment parameters (if any)?

Authority:

  • Who is the author/editor? What is their background and expertise? Do they have any potential conflicts of interest or biases in relation to this resource?
  • Who is the publisher/website/journal? What is their general reputation?  Who owns or funds the publisher/website/journal?
  • Who is the typical audience or purpose of this publication/website/journal?

Accuracy:

  • Is there information you can fact-check? 
  • Are there in-text citations and a reference list? Is there an appropriate amount of references?  Are the citations current (to the publication) and from credible/reputable sources?
  •  Are sources and/or analyses provided for any data and figures included in the resource? 

Purpose: 

  • What, if any, is the context of the resource?
  • What was the author’s purpose in writing this resource?

 

The Silent S

We often tell our students that after the CRAAP test comes the silent S -- the gaps and silences in the source. Example questions you can ask to evaluate the Silences include:

  • What perspectives, voices, and/or identities that have a stake in the topic are being left out of this discussion?
  • What, if any, information or context is missing?

The CRAAP(S) Test is a good way to start learning how to evaluate sources, but it is not the only way. Another way we can evaluate sources is through lateral reading. For more information about lateral reading, please visit the tutorial here.

The CRAAP Test was developed by Sarah Blakeslee and other librarians at California State University.  Read more via:
Blakeslee, Sarah.  "The CRAAP Test."  LOEX Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, 2004, https://commons.emich.edu/loexquarterly/vol31/iss3/4.

Trying to figure out if something you see on the Internet is real or not? Try: 

The SIFT Method

  1. Stop
    1. Do you recognize the website?
    2. What was your purpose in getting to this webpage?
  2. Investigate the Source
    1. Where’s the content from? Webpage, webpage’s other coverage, author, author’s affiliation, etc.
    2. Is the caption misleading?
  3. Find Better Coverage
    1. Can you find a more trusted source for the same information?
    2. Is there a consensus for the information provided?
  4. Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to the Original Context
    1. Can you trace back the information to its original source?
    2. Whose research/reporting is this article written on?

 

For more information about the SIFT method you can read the free, short ebook: Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers by Mike Caulfield (Washington State University).

Lateral reading helps you determine an author's credibility, intent, and biases by searching for articles on the same topic by other writers (to see how they are covering it) and for other articles by the author or organization that you're checking on. This is one of the strongest tools in your fact checking toolkit. Ideally lateral reading is an essential part of both the CRAAP test (notably the "Can you verify any of the information in another source or from personal knowledge?" question under the "Accuracy" criteria) and SIFT method (essentially Step 3's "Is there a consensus for the information provided?"), but it might help to understand this as a strategy of its own.

You can learn more about this strategy using the library's Evaluating Sources Using Lateral Reading tutorial (optional for FYI, also listed on the Home page).

Research often requires reviewing large amounts of material at a time. Active reading strategies can significantly increase learning new information.

Consider the 5 step SQ3R strategy from Metodes.Iv's Toms Urdze:

1. Survey – What can I learn from the text?

Before reading skim the material:

  • Skim the table of contents and find three to five main ideas that will be presented in the text.
  • Pay attention to names, headings and subheadings.
  • Look at the captions under images, tables, diagrams and maps.
  • Pay particular attention to the introductory and final paragraphs, which often contain a summary of the text.

2. Question – What do I hope to learn from the text?

Before reading a section, formulate questions and do the following:

  • Rephrase headings into questions.
  • Look whether the author has formulated questions at the beginning or end of the section.
  • Recall what you already know about the topic and what you still want to learn about it.

3. Read – Look for answers to your questions

  • Read captions under images and diagrams. Pay attention to highlighted information.
  • Be open-minded – pay attention to new ideas and differing opinions.
  • Stop and reread difficult and unclear parts.

4. Recite – Consider what you want to remember from the information obtained.

  • Think about what you’ve read and summarise the main ideas expressed in the text.
  • If you realise there is something you have not fully understood, reread that section.
  • Take notes, expressing ideas in your own words.

5. Recall – Reread your notes and link the information with your own experience.

  • After reading the whole text, reread your own notes and pay attention to the main ideas and connections between the ideas.
  • Link what you have learned with your own experience and other sources of information.

The Wikipedia Question

Wikipedia is the biggest encyclopedia ever created. It exists in hundreds of languages. Anyone may contribute by writing or editing articles, and articles are developed over time, which means articles can be of varying quality. It is important for readers to recognize whether an article is a good or poor. To evaluate Wikipedia article quality, look in three places: the article's text and references, the article's "talk" page, and the page's edit history.

Again, when researching a topic, one of the first things you might do is head to an encyclopedia or Wikipedia to get a basic sense of what the topic is about or to find some keywords to use in a library database search.  This is a good strategy!

For an academic report or presentation, however, you usually wouldn't cite Wikipedia itself, but rather you would cite the references that provide whatever information you're interested in.  Doing this allows you and your professor to verify that your information is coming from a reliable source.  Have a look at the below image, taken from the Black Lives Matter Wikipedia page, for an example of where to find references in a Wikipedia.

If for whatever reason you want to cite an entire Wikipedia page (for instance, because there are so many basic facts on it that it wouldn't make sense to cite each of the facts individually), always cite the Permanent link version of the page.  This will provide a snapshot of the Wikipedia page in time, which is better for citation purposes than just citing a page that might (and will) change tomorrow.


 

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