Imagine you just found the perfect piece of information to include in your paper. What a relief! Before you decide to include the source in your paper, you need to evaluate whether the source is credible. The video Determining Good Sources created by University of Manitoba Libraries discusses questions you should ask when you are deciding whether to include information in your paper.

There is a lot to consider when you’re evaluating whether a source is credible or not. Many academic librarians teach students about the CRAAP test or method to help guide the evaluation process, created by Sarah Blakeslee, of the University of California at Chico’s Meriam Library. The video Evaluating Sources created by Western University explains this method in more detail.

Here is the CRAAP test presented visually. You may want to keep this handy and use it like a checklist while you find your sources.

If you’d like to refer to it while you’re researching, you can download the CRAAP Test as a Word Document.

Just as there is a lot of information to sift through as you prepare to write a paper, there is a lot of information to guide your evaluation process. Here are a few more tips to help you along the way.

Information Source Evaluation Tips 

Try this mini-quiz:

Try this mini-quiz: 

Adaptations

Material in this section has been adapted from Evaluate Your Resources by The Learning Portal / Le Portail d’Apprentissage, by College Libraries Ontario, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License and from Research Help Guide: Evaluate your Sources by Toronto Metropolitan University Library, licensed under All Rights Reserved, used with permission.

References

Fuhr, J., & Ford, L. [University of Manitoba Libraries]. (2018, August 30). Determining Good Sources. [Video] YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3wkcql6kXA

Toronto Metropolitan University. (2022, April, 21). Research Help Guide: Evaluate Your Sources. https://learn.library.ryerson.ca/research/evaluate

Western University. [Western University]. (n.d.) Evaluating Sources. [Video] YouTube. https://youtu.be/EyMT08mD7Ds