Engineering 190W - Spring 2023 - Foresta Section: Home

For Chat, Text, eMail and to schedule with your subject librarian click on "Schedule Appointment" under Librarian's name in right sidebar or for other general assistance or a consultation with any Librarian, use:

When using Online or Internet Resources, consider Search Engines vs. metasites - evaluate resource - be attentive to domain -may include .com, .edu, .org, .gov, .net

Evaluating Information – Applying the CRAAP Test

For Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose

https://www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf

Goal is to establish relevancy.  The evaluation criteria includes these issues:

Scope of coverage

Currency – be able to distinguish currency from timeliness

Relevance – meaningful to what audience; at what level; will you cite it as authoritative?

Authority – stem is author – establishes the source of the information – author/publisher/source/sponsor; organizational affiliations & credentials; contact information

Accuracy – reliability, correctness of content; supported by evidence; is it verifiable; is tone unbiased, objective, impartial & free of emotion; free of errors?

Purpose – are hypotheses and authors’ intentions clear?  Why is content important – to inform, teach, sell, entertain or persuade?  Any political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?

Ease of use – Capturing, copying, citing; design & presentation

Another method to evaluate is S.I.F.T - so:

Remember when we cite or quote, we are CHOOSING to bring other voices into our paper or scholarly work.

Let's ask, Why we cite?

• to give credit to authors
• to show your work
• to be a responsible researcher
• to avoid plagiarism

Think of 5 criteria you use to evaluate information and what questions to you ask yourself to determine relevancy or whether your information need is met?

Evaluation of evaluating strategies

• consider that we are on information overload - how to distinguish between accurate information & misinformation
• transition from reading vertically (CRAAP) vs laterally - use 4 moves, known as S.I.F.T, with these action items:
  • stop - open up a browser tab & enter a search term
  • investigate the source(s) - who wrote or said this? who is the author? what process or methodology was used to produce this information and what systems are in place with this source to catch mistakes and correct them?
  • find better coverage - consult other sources, demonstrating the historical context, disciplinary approaches, are there patterns of perspectives or dominant ideas that emerge, and what voices are missing?
  • trace things back to the original context - is the evidence misquoted or misrepresented; where is the data from & how was it collected and can we make legitimate conclusions from it?
  • watch this video on lateral reading strategies (3.47) from the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, co-sponsored by the Stanford History Education Group