9 Information Literacy: Evaluating Information

Having information literacy skills means knowing how to find and use outside sources well. This means that you are able to locate the work of other scholars and experts (from library databases, books or journals, or from outside sources like Google Scholar) and incorporate them into your own work. Using your information literacy skills means that you know how to choose sources wisely, and how to evaluate whether a source is “good” or “bad.” It also means that you value academic honesty, and that you are careful about providing attribution via in-text citations and a Works Cited list whenever you use other people’s ideas.

The three sections below provide useful information about using outside sources responsibly.

 

A. How do you know if your sources are “good”? Ask yourself the questions on this checklist for Evaluating Information from our HCC library:

Evaluating Information

The CRAAP test is a set of criteria to help evaluate information sources:

Criteria Details
Currency
When was it written or last updated?
  • Was the information published or updated within the last 5 years?
  • Is the information still current?
  • Is currency important to the topic?
Relevancy
How useful is the information to your needs?
  • Does the information relate to your topic?
  • Is the information easy to understand, or does it use a lot of unfamiliar words?
  • Is the article long enough to be of use? Is it too brief? If it too long?
Authority
Who is the source of the information?
  • Is there an author listed?
  • Is the author an expert on the topic?
  • Does the author have a bias?
Accuracy
What is the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the information?
  • Does the information have citations or footnotes to verify the information provided?
  • Is the text well-written?
  • Is the text free of spelling or grammatical errors?
Purpose
Why does the information exist?
  • What is the purpose of the information? To inform? To persuade? To sell?
  • Does the information contain facts? Or is providing an opinion?

 

 

B. When using websites, we need to be especially careful to ensure that we are looking at reliable information. Use this checklist for Evaluating Websites, also from our HCC library, to help you make decisions about possible sources:

Evaluating Websites: Evaluating Information Checklist

Here are some basic questions categorized in three sections to help you understand and evaluate the credibility of a website.

The Author

Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is the author, whether a single person or a group of people, an expert?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is there a way to contact the author(s) for more information or to verify who they are?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Does the author use real, checkable facts to support his or her opinions?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Does the author use neutral language, regardless of his or her opinion about the subject?

The Website

Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Does the page have a .edu, .org, or .gov ending in its URL?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is there a date that shows when the page was last updated?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is the page complete, containing no broken links or “under construction” pages?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is the page well designed and easy to navigate, without too much scrolling or clicking?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is this information published elsewhere in hardcopy, such as in a newspaper or journal?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is the content of the page well written, with few grammar and spelling mistakes?

You

Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Is this site appropriate for your needs?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Did you make a checklist of what a reliable site about your topic would be like?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Will your instructor be impressed when s/he sees this site in your works cited list?
Check to see if this Web site meets the criteria. Have you looked at at least 5 sites about this topic?

 

C. Do you prefer to listen and learn? Listen to this video about “5 Ways to Evaluate Information” from HCC’s librarians.

 

Materials in this chapter were created by library staff at Howard Community College and are reproduced here with their permission.

 

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ENGLISH 087: Academic Advanced Writing Copyright © 2020 by Nancy Hutchison is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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