When researching a topic, you may find a lot of results, but is it all good information? The critical evaluation of sources is an important piece of the research process. When selecting sources, you should take into account the Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. This is known as the CRAAP test.
The tabs in this section have a series of questions to help you evaluate the information you find.
Currency: the timeliness of the information
Relevance: the importance of the information for your needs
Authority: the source of the information
Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content, and
Purpose: the reason the information exists
Excellent INTERACTIVE tutorial created by UVM on evaluating web sources. Link to Tutorial
Tutorial Overview
In this tutorial, you will learn about a standard evaluation criteria that will help you quickly and accurately evaluate information.
After completing this tutorial, you will have practiced using a standard evaluative criteria commonly employed by academic researchers.
What you will learn
After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:
What does it mean for a source to be credible? Why is it important to use these sources? How can you tell if a source is credible?
Watch this brief video created by NCSU Library on Evaluating Sources for Credibility.
Type in the domain name / URL you wish to have knowledge about (without the "http://" or "www"). Then, click inquire. The resulting data will include such things as hosting information, traffic details, etc.