What are three of the five criteria discussed in your textbook for evaluating the information you find in your research?

Why Evaluate?

You should analyze all the information you come across - regardless of whether you're looking for information for academic, professional, or personal reasons. Evaluating information encourages you to think critically about whether or not it is factual and reliable.

A perk of utilizing the library's resources and databases is that you know it's already been reviewed prior to joining our collection. That means half the work has been done for you and you can now focus on whether or not it is current enough and relevant to your needs.

However, if you're utilizing information on the world wide web, you'll need to be extra vigilant and cautious. Anyone can publish anything on the internet, meaning that most of what you'll find there is published without any type of review process.

Evaluating Information

To assess the resources you have found, consider the following criteria:

1. Currency - the timeliness of the information

• when was it published or posted?
• has it been updated?
• does your topic require current information or are older sources also acceptable?

2. Relevance - the importance of the information for your needs

• does the information relate to your topic?
• is it written at an appropriate level - not too elementary or advanced?
• would you be comfortable using it in a research paper?

3. Authority - the source of the information

• who is the author/publisher/source?
• what are the author's credentials?
• is the publisher reputable?

4. Accuracy - the reliability, truthfulness and correctness of the information

• is the information supported by evidence?
• has it been reviewed?
• can you verify the information in other sources?
• are there spelling or grammatical errors?

5. Purpose - the reason the information exists

• why was this created - to inform, educate, sell, entertain, or persuade?
• is it objective and free of bias?

Still not sure about the quality of your sources? 

Think Critically...

With a lot of reading to do it can be tempting to focus 100% on getting that job done. Taking the time to think about what you are reading and your best next steps can help you to stay on track and work smarter, not harder. As you read, consider the following:

• what did you just read/learn about the topic?
• are there any major themes or relationships you've been able to identify?
• is there a gap of knowledge/discussion about certain aspects of the topic? [hint: this is especially important when conducting a literature review!!]

Taking the time to consider these questions can help you to work toward a focused and thorough draft.

Review...

Go back to your instructions and make sure you've gathered enough appropriate resources to meet your instructor's requirements. Think about what you're trying to do in your paper. Are the resources you've found sufficient in substantiating your claims/arguments?

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• How to Decide What Info to Use
• How do I investigate a source (S.I.F.T.)?
• How do I evaluate using the CRAAP test?
• How do I know if my source is "scholarly?"

Once you've started to find some research sources, you'll want to choose the information that best fits your needs for your speech! Keep in mind that you want the information to be relevant to your topic, but also to be credible so your audience will find the information convincing and worth their time.

• Want to learn how you can quickly "check up" on a source to see if it is trustworthy? Try the SIFT tab, especially the "I" (Investigate the Source) move.
• Want more help with evaluating and the CRAAP test? Check out "How do I evaluate using the CRAAP test?"
• Not sure is a source counts as academic? Check out the "How do I know if my source is "scholarly"? tab.

Source: "Research 101: Credibility is Contextual" by Anna Eisen, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Learn about how credibility depends on many factors including the author, audience and purpose.

• Stop. Think critically. Avoid looking only for information that confirms your own view. Have an open mind to consider new or controversial topics and seek to understand.
• Investigate. Find out who the author is, why they wrote it, etc.
• Find better coverage. Read laterally. Once you get to the source of a claim, read what other people say about the source.
• Trace claims. Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original source.

Stop

STOP reminds you of two things:

1. First, when you first hit a page or post and start to read it — STOP.  

• Ask yourself whether you know the website or source of the information, and what the reputation of both the claim and the website is. If you don’t have that information, use the other moves to get a sense of what you’re looking at.
• Don’t read it or share media until you know what it is.

1. Second, after you begin to fact-check, it can be easy to want to "keep going" or get lost clicking on result after result. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, STOP and take a second to remember your goal.

• If you just want to repost, read an interesting story, or get a high-level explanation of a concept, it’s probably good enough to find out whether the publication is reputable (Investigate the source, then stop).
• If you are doing deep research of your own, you may want to chase down individual claims and verify them (Do all four SIFT moves.).

Investigate the source

The idea here is that you want to know what you’re reading before you read it.

Now, you don’t have to do a Pulitzer prize-winning investigation into a source before you use it. But if you’re reading an article on economics by a Nobel prize-winning economist, you should know that. On the other side, if you’re watching a video on the benefits of milk that was created by the dairy industry, you want to know that as well.

Knowing the expertise and likely bias of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say. 

Source: "Online Verification Skills — Video 2: Investigate the Source" by CTRL-F, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Find better coverage

When you don't care about a source -- or already suspect bias -- your best bet is to go out and find the best source you can on the topic, or look for consensus, to check the claims the original source is making

Source: "Online Verification Skills — Video 4: Look for Trusted Work" by CTRL-F, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Trace claims, quotes, and media back to the original context

Much of what we find on the internet has been stripped of context, and we're not sure if we're receiving all the details. In these cases, you can trace the claim, quote, or media back to the source, so you can see it in it’s original context and get a sense if the version you saw was accurately presented.

Source: "Online Verification Skills — Video 3: Find the Original Source" by CTRL-F, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Source: "Using the C.R.A.P. Test to Evaluate Websites" by Portland State University Library, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

This video explains the C.R.A.P. test and then uses it to evaluate three websites on the topic of performance enhancing drugs in sports.

6-minute video on the CRAAP test for evaluating websites

Maybe it was easy to find, but is it good? 

Assess: Does this information belong in my academic project or is it .... CRAAP?

Currency

•  How recent is the information?
•  If a website, how recently has it been updated?
•  Is it current enough for your topic? (Is this a  field with rapidly changing information?)

Reliability

• Is content of the resource primarily opinion? Is  it balanced?
•  Does the creator provide citations or sources?
•  Can you verify the info elsewhere?

Authority / Accuracy

• Can you find the credentials of the author or  creator of the information? (if a website - check the "about" page)
•  If a website, is a known, objective organization responsible for the information (example: .gov, .org, .edu domains)?
•  Are there obvious errors or typos?

Purpose / Point of View

Is the information fact or opinion?

•  Who is the intended audience?
•  Are there advertisements?
•  Is the creator/author trying to:
  • Sell you  something?
  • Inform you?
  • Entertain?
  • Persuade?  
•  What is the publisher’s interest (if any) in this  information? Can you determine if the publisher  has a political, religious, or other ideology to  promote?

Source: "How Library Stuff Works: Scholarly vs. Popular Sources" by McMaster Libraries, is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Learn about the differences between scholarly and popular sources and how to identify them when researching your topic.

What do we mean by "bias?"

Bias is when the source has a particular viewpoint or ideology it is trying to promote. In the chart below, different United States news publishers are sorted by where their stories tend to "lean" in partisan political bias (liberal or conservative) and how much straight news reporting vs. news interpretation ("features," "opinion") vs. disinformation (nonsense or conspiracy theory) reporting they do. This chart is a few years old, but can give you a sense of how the presentation of the same event might differ across different organizations' websites!

• Media Bias Chart

  A visual chart of the bias / political lean / fact vs interpretation of the news in major media sources.

"Evaluate" Activity

The Link:

• 25 Greatest Superfoods and Why They're Super

  Use this PDF if the website link will not load in class.

What you're doing:

Sample Topic: Choosing Food for a Nutritious Diet

1. Your group will have one of the four CRAAP test criteria.
2. Go to the example site (link above) and assess the site as an information source using your group's criteria. It will be one of these four:
   • Currency
   • Reliability
   • Authority / Accuracy
   • Purpose (Point of View)
3. Discuss with your group members - how does the site do for your criteria - does it "pass?"
4. When we return - be prepared to share (briefly) - How did the site do? 
5. Overall as a class, we'll make a judgment call - does this site pass the "CRAAP Test"?

General tips for this article:

• Health (medical) research study-based news can begin to be dated if it more than 5 years old -- proceed with caution!
• You can mouse over the links (underlined text) in the article and look at the bottom of the screen to see where it is linking.
• Nutrition is a field that has its own medical experts, so while anyone can write about healthy diets, we are not all experts..
• Think about: individuals often need to balance what they eat for their own needs (not all foods or diets are healthy for all people).  

Librarian example assessment:

Currency: There is an update date of April 8, 2020 at the bottom of this article & the references used seem like they have been updated (many are from 2017 - last 5 years.) Decision: Good

Reliability: The article is written by "Mayo Clinic Staff" which is unclear. But the site lists subject-expert Nutrition editors that oversee the content, and the outside references have a high level of authority. Decision: OK / Neutral (worried about the lack of an individual author).

Authority / Accuracy: The sources cited at the end of the article are from authoritative outlets - academic research within the last 5 years and reputable government agencies (USDA). Decision: Good.

Point of View: The Mayo Clinic is a highly-regarded public health information source, and the list of editors is very transparent. The site uses highly reputable references and does not seem to have a bias. It makes its accountability to being unbiased very clear with both a non-discrimination statement and outside certification from a health information authority (Health on the Net). Decision: Good.

Overall: a good source for my speech - I would use this source for general (public) nutrition information about organic food.

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