Evaluating information
Evaluating Information
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- Evaluating information
At university you will be expected to take responsibility for your own learning – to become an independent learner. This will involve developing key skills including time management and organisational skills, effective reading and note taking, and understanding the requirements of academic study. These pages provide support and guidance on all aspects of academic study.
Evaluating your Information
When we say "evaluating information" we are talking about not taking a piece of information on face value and investigating it through different ways.
A quick way to remember this is to think CRAAP.
C - C stands for Currency. When was the book or journal article published? Do you need to find information from the last 5 years?
R- R stands for Relevancy. How relevant is the information to your assignment or topic? The book chapter may be interesting but is it taking you off on a tangent. Stay focused on subjects that align with your assignment.
A - A stands for Accuracy. Is the information correct? Are you able to verify it? Are there obvious inaccuracies? You need to be confident that the information is genuine.
A - A stands for Authority. Who is the author of the information? Are they an expert in their field? Did they start a blog a month ago? Do they have lived experience of a subject? Look at other information published by that author to decide if they are a trust worthy source.
P - P stands for Purpose. What is the purpose of the article? Why was it written? Is the author trying to persuade you or is this information a balanced view of the subject. If the author's knowledge is coming from lived experience is there an obvious bias. What is the author trying to say?
If you interrogate your information using the CRAAP method you may identify resources that are not suitable for your research and keep your studies on track.
