Evaluating Information
Evaluating information sources involves critically appraising the information you have located, whether it is from a library database, the Internet, social media or Google Scholar.
The CRAAP and SIFT tools are two ways to do this:
Consider:
1) Who? Who has written the information? With a book or journal article this is easy as the information will be on the title page. With a website you need to look for something that gives you this information. E.g. An "About us" page or something similar.
2) What? What is the information based on? Is it just opinion, or is it academically reliable? For it to be academically reliable it needs to give full details of the source of the information. "An insider", "Someone in the know" are not reliable sources. Look for full citation details. Depending on your assignment, sometimes opinion pieces are acceptable -just make sure you evaluate the information you are using.
3) Where? Where has this information come from? Who is responsible for it being made available? Is it from an official and reliable source? You need to know where the information is coming from so you can decide if it is academically credible.
4) Why? Why is this information being published/ posted? Is it to spread high quality information on a topic, or does it have another agenda? Is there a bias?
5) When? When was the information written and when was made available? You need to know how old the information is, and whether it is still current. Has it been superseded by new information? Use your common sense on this. If you are taking a historical perspective obviously you can use older works, if you are looking for up to date theories or processes then it would not be relevant.
6) How? How is this resource useful to you? Your time is very limited. Make sure you spend your research time on things that are actually going to help you achieve your research goal!
Fake news is real
For more information, watch How to Spot Fake News