ECM 1120 Information Literacy: Web Sources

Some instructors might ask you to not use any web sources for your assignments, but Google searches and websites are useful tools! We use them every day, so we might as well learn more about them.

How do you decide if something is reliable or not? Sometimes we can tell a website is untrustworthy just by looking at it: there might be a bunch of weird and scammy ads. Sometimes the information on the website is so outrageous and biased that we can tell the author isn't trustworthy. But most of the time it's difficult to tell what you can and can't trust.

You can use something called the CRAAP Test to tell if a website, or any other type of source, is credible or not. CRAAP stands for:

• Currency: the timeliness of the information. Is there a date posted that tells you when the information was published? Does your assignment need really up-to-date information or is older stuff okay?
• Relevance: the importance of the information for what you need. Do you feel comfortable using this information in a college setting? Does this information come from a source that's appropriate for the type of assignment you're doing?
• Authority: the source of the information. Who wrote this? Are they qualified to write this?
• Accuracy: whether or not the information is true or correct. Where did this information come from? Can you verify any of the information?
• Purpose: the reason the information exists. Do the authors have a bias? Why did they put this information out there?

I've linked the CRAAP Test handout I gave out in class on this page. It has a bunch of questions you can ask yourself about a source that will help you evaluate it.