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English 1000: Monsters: Evaluating Information

Evaluating Information: The CRAAP Test

Currency: the timeliness of the information

  • When was the information published or posted?
  • Has the information been revised or updated?
  • Is the information current or out-of -date for your topic?
  • Are the links functional?

Relevance: the importance of the information for your needs

  • Does the information relate to your topic or answer your question?
  • Who is the intended audience?
  • Is the information at an appropriate level; not too elementary or too advanced?
  • Have you looked at a variety of sources before determing this is the one you will use use?
  • Would you be comfortable using this source for a research paper?

Authority: the source of information

  • Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor?
  • Are the author's credentials or organizational affiliations given?
  • What are the author's credentials or organizational affiliations?
  • What are the author's qualifications to write on this topic?
  • Is there contact information, such as a publisher or e-mail address?
  • Does the URL reveal anything about the author or source? For example: .com (commercial); .edu (educational); .gov (government); .org (organization); .net (network)

Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness,and correctness of the infromation content

  • Where does the information come from?
  • Is the information supposrted by evidence?
  • Has the information been reviewed or refereed?
  • Can you verify any of the information in another source or from personal knowledge?
  • Does the language or tone seem biased and free of emotion?
  • Are there spelling, grammar, or other typographical errors?

Purpose: the reason the information exists

  • What is the purpose of the information? to inform? teach? sell? entertain? persuade?
  • Do the authors/sponsors make their intentions or purpose clear?
  • Is the information fact? opinion? propaganda?
  • Does the point of view appear objective and impartial?
  • Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional, or personal biases?

Sources & Resources Spreadsheet

Fake News & Alternative Facts
https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/c.php?g=630689&p=4406224
libraryguides.missouri.edu
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-40
45399
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:IKTHE2LG3AOXMIVXR52HXSOKP4AO4I65
<urn:uuid:f2a3f609-d9da-486f-a58a-6a5a4f431a5c>
2022-09-27T15:38:27Z
54.88.35.99
text/html
sha1:MBTNZN4YDZEY42B4JEWKRMBC7MHD6RX4
<urn:uuid:0e13385d-5835-44e2-ab9a-3fd6265b6adb>
https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/c.php?g=630689&p=4406224
response
<urn:uuid:323b7faa-03a4-4e79-9f11-c0f3d308114f>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-40
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September/October 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-142
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/