Evaluating Websites

The Resources tab suggests various trustworthy digital sources: Digital databases (paid) plus News and Non-Fiction links (freely available). It is highly recommended that you use these resources before trying an open internet search, which is likely to return so many results that it can be confusing.

The CRAP test is a way to evaluate a source based on the following criteria: Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose/Point of View.  Below are some questions to help you think about how to measure each of the criteria. 

 Currency 

• How recent is the information?

• How recently has the website been updated?

• Is it current enough for your topic?

 Reliability 

• What kind of information is included in the resource?

• Is the content of the resource primarily opinion?  Is it balanced?

• Does the creator provide references or sources for data or quotations?

Authority 

• Who is the creator or author?

• What are their credentials?

• Who is the publisher or sponsor?

• Are they an authority on the subject?

• What is the publisher's interest (if any) in this information?

• Are there advertisements on the website?

Purpose/Point of View -

• Is this fact or opinion?

• Is it biased?

• Is the creator/author trying to sell you something?

 Reference

Orenic, K. (2008). The CRAP test. http://loex2008collaborate.pbworks.com/w/page/18686701/The%20CRAP%20Test

• One of the quickest and easiest ways to find out how legitimate or trustworthy a website is is by simply opening a new tab and fact-checking outside the website. 

• Our instinct is to search within the website for more information, but by searching for the company/ author/ product name in a new tab you can often quickly find out the purpose of the website (ie: sell you something, hoax, biased opinion).

• Wikipedia is an excellent fact-checking source for lateral searching.

Steps in the process

• How relevant is the information I have found?

• How credible is the information I have found?

Students should be able to:

• begin to analyse the usefulness of each source

• decide whether information is closer to fact or opinion

• identify inconsistency and bias in sources