Evaluate for quality & reliability
Be a critical consumer of information. You wouldn't trust a stranger you met on the street to provide information for a paper you were writing, so why would you trust strangers when they publish information online? Keep the CRAAP analysis in mind as you evaluate materials.
Currency Refers to the timeliness of the information. How recently has this information been updated? How important is having recently published information for your topic?
Relevancy Is the information useful in the context in which you plan on using it? Is it appropriate for college-level research? Is it the best information out there, or could you find better, more complete info elsewhere?
Authority Who is publishing this information? Does he/she/the organization have a background that makes them experts in this subject matter? How do you know?
Accuracy Is the information correct? Are there spelling or grammatical errors? If so, you may want to question the accuracy of the information on the site. Does the website cite any sources? Where is the author getting his/her information?
Purpose Why has the information been published on the web? To entertain? to sell a product or service? To inform? Does the author have any biases? Might this lead to the information being less credible?
Many scholarly journals use a process of peer review prior to publishing an article, whereby other scholars in the author's field or specialty critically assess a draft of the article. Peer-reviewed journals (also called refereed journals) are scholarly journals that only publish articles that have passed through this review process. The review process helps ensure that the published articles reflect solid scholarship in their fields. More
Need a book or journal article we don't have? You can request it through interlibrary loan (ILL). We will borrow a book or get a copy of an article for you from another library and notify you when it arrives. You can request items by filling out an online form or directly through any FirstSearch database (Worldcat, Eric, ArticleFirst).