English 102 Library Instruction: Evaluation

You can use the "CRAAP" test to help you evaluate the information sources you find.

http://guides.lili.org/ld.php?content_id=25317863

• Are there any boxes indicating that additional references or other improvement is needed?
• Are there references and/or external links listed at the end of the article?  Are they mostly to websites or other Wikipedia articles? Do they look useful?
• Click on the Talk tab.  Are there ratings or indications of the quality or comprehensiveness?  Is there a list of what needs to be added or changed?  Are there any questions about the validity of this article?

HISTORY

• Click on the “View History” tab near the top. Then click on (earliest). When was this article created?. 
• On average, about how often is this article edited? Lots of editing can improve the quality, but sometimes it can mean there is disagreement.
• Approximately how many people appear to have contributed to this article ( just a handful? too many to count?)
• Is there evidence of edit wars or arguments over content (for example, the same changes keep getting made then undone)?
• Is there evidence of frequent vandalism (many changes with edits that say “vandalism” or something similar)?

When you find a book in the catalog or on the shelf, how do you decide if it is a good source for your research?  Books generally undergo more evaluation before publishing than some websites, and, if a library owns a book, that means more evaluation has taken place (for purchase and inclusion).  However, you still need to check for quality and relevance.  Here is a link to some questions you should ask:

Want to learn more about evaluation?

http://money.cnn.com/infographic/technology/what-is-the-deep-web/

Information in this table was created in conjunction with viewing the University of Victoria's Research Tips Central pages.