Online tutorial

Student writing and using a laptop

Online tutorial: evaluating information

Learn how to critically evaluate information

Why do you need to evaluate information?

why do you need to evaluate information?

When researching information and evidence for your assignments, an important part of the process is evaluating the information you’ve found.  Your ability to evaluate and critique a variety of sources is important in achieving good marks for your assignments. 

You’re certain to come across misinformation, disinformation and fake news online.  Your ability to evaluate information critically is one of Manchester Met’s graduate outcomes and is a crucial transferable skill valued by your employers.

This guide provides tips in evaluating sources of information for validity and credibility.  It also explores different academic sources such as academic books and journals and explains why you should use such scholarly material in your assignments.

What's the CRAAP test?

CRAAP

The acronym CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.  These evaluation criteria are explained in more detail on this guide and in the video below.

Use the CRAAP test as a guide to evaluate sources of information in the context of your assignment and your information need, as this may determine if some criteria may take priority over others.

Be aware that it may also be useful to engage with sources that do not pass the CRAAP test as long as you critically evaluate the information.  It is important that you locate and understand multiple perspectives on a topic, keep an open mind and acknowledge that new research can potentially dispute previously widely held views.


The CRAAP test was created by Sarah Blakeslee of the Chico’s Meriam Library at the University of California

Evaluating sources using the CRAAP test

What are academic sources?

What are academic sources?

Your tutor will ask you to use academic sources for your assignments, which includes scholarly books and journal articles.

Although you should still evaluate these sources of information in terms of relevancy and currency and assess the appropriateness of the content for your academic work, there’s less need to evaluate academic sources in terms of quality.

The following videos provide an overview of these types of academic sources. The first video discusses academic sources and also the credibility and evaluation of online non-academic sources.

Identifying academic sources

Books

What are journals?