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Evaluating Sources

Evaluating Sources: The CRAAP Test

The critical evaluation of information is a basic skill you need to develop to conduct quality research. Critical evaluation combines common sense, knowledge, skepticism, and verification. Remember, not all of the information you find will be suitable, and using inaccurate or inappropriate information will weaken your research results.

With so much information available, in so many formats, and from so many sources, it is essential that you carefully review and evaluate each piece of information you select to ensure its quality, authority, perspective, and balance. As you can imagine, this process can be overwhelming. So, what exactly should you look for?

One very helpful strategy is the CRAAP Test. CRAAP is the abbreviation for:

  • Currency

  • Relevance

  • Authority

  • Accuracy

  • Purpose

View the video below for an explanation of how you can apply the CRAAP Test to evaluate information sources:

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources

As you conduct your research you will encounter three types of sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary. This brief clip will help you understand the differences among these three types:

Source: Suffolk County Community College Library

 

Why Should I Use Primary Sources?

You should incorporate primary resources into your research for a number of reasons:

  • Scholarly research should be based on fact and observation, which involves the use of primary sources.
  • Primary resources encourage you to form your own opinions, based on the facts.  They also help you understand how people felt, at the time, about an event or about other individuals.
  • Using primary sources demonstrates to your professor that you have done the research required to produce a quality paper. It also shows that you are able to take the facts, interpret them, and draw your own conclusions, rather than simply regurgitate other people's work.
  • You generally will produce a better-quality paper if you use primary sources to back up your thesis statement.

In most cases a mixture of sources produces a more substantial paper. Therefore, you should use primary and secondary sources; scholarly and popular; paper and electronic, ideas and artifacts; fact and fiction, etc.

(Reproduced with permission from Carol Oshel, Reference Librarian, Eugene McDermott Library, UT Dallas.)