Librarian's Take

Now that you've completed your evaluation of the source we provided, here's our take on it. We broke it down by each element of the CRAAP Test so you can see how it helped us evaluate this source.

Though we are going through this in order, remember that the two most important elements of the CRAAP Test are Purpose and Authority. We will typically address these first because if the source doesn't pass these, there's no point in moving on to the other elements.

Currency

It is not clear when the information was gathered necessarily but looking at the References listed on the site, they are all from the early to mid 2000s with the most recent one being from 2011, so this gives us an idea.
The original publication date was April 2011 and the site was updated October 2013. It doesn't specify what was updated.
The site itself looks modern and up-to-date, but after clicking on a few links not all of them are working. For example, at the time of this guide's creation, the PDF link was broken as were some of the Reference links.

Relevance

Since we're pretending to be researching bullying and its effects on children, we will say yes, this is relevant to what we are researching.
The intended audience appears to be parents and teachers for the most part and maybe some doctors or healthcare providers. More on this later when we get to Purpose.
The authors don't assume a whole lot about their audience, providing definitions to bullying and a list of types or characteristics of those who may be bullied. The information at the start is very basic and it builds on itself as it continues to offer preventative solutions.
A quick search does show similar information on other sites, at least for the more basic information leading us to believe it is largely common knowledge until further along in the site.

Authority

The "primary author" is Den Trumbull, MD. A quick Google Search shows that he is a licensed pediatrician and the author of a book and website.
The website's organization, American College of Pediatricians, is a non-profit claiming to be "organized for scientific and educational purposes." There are a number of possible red flags on their About Us page that could pose a problem depending on your research. These red flags caught our attention because they are politically and/or religiously motivated while being described on the site as scientific. Some issues we had with the organization are:
- Throughout the About Us page and specifically under Objectives and Principles, they reference politics and "social considerations" as something they face opposition with. This is a red flag because to call these out in such important parts of the About Us page shows that the organization is likely politically and/or religiously motivated. Keeping this in mind, the rest of the possible issues with the authority jump out.
- They repeat how they support children's health from conception along with how science requires morals, suggesting a stance that is pro-life.
They repeat the support and promotion of the father-mother family unit within the context of marriage as the best setting for children.
They are advocates for sexual abstinence and support this as how children should be taught until marriage.
These are major red flags when you are doing non-bias research and should make you consider how the information regarding bullying could have been altered to fit this viewpoint. It doesn't mean it has, but it means it needs to be considered carefully.

Accuracy

Sources or References are provided as evidence to their points, but there are several that raise red flags for us.
- The Alliance Defense Fund is a clearly political and religiously motivated organization. Using them as a source makes us question motivation.
- Pediatrics is a well-respected, scientific, peer-reviewed journal so using that journal as a source is good; however, the places in which this journal was used as evidence are not in places that support the author's assertions and points making the use of the journal less influential in their argument.
- In fact, many of their assertions come without citations at all with the exception of one under Prevention (citing "School Bullying and Victimization"), but this source has been used in a misleading way. If you go and read the journal article, you will find that that the authors identify limitations in their study, many of which mean that the quote used is taken out of context.
- There are more issues with the two news articles used, both of which the links no longer work but can be found by searching for the article title on Google.
As we've already discussed, some of the links no longer work, suggesting the site (at least this page on the site) is no longer being kept up-to-date but the news articles could be found using a Google Search.
Some but not all of the information provided can be verified from other sources.

Purpose

At first glance, the author may not seem biased but there is something that must be noticed regarding this source. It is an opinion piece, though it is very much made to look like an academic article. If you look at the URL of the article, it is under the section "Position Statements," which clearly makes it an opinion/editorial piece which the author attempts to justify with a few sources that are largely inadequate for their argument.
Even though this is a position statement, there should be some clear definition or thesis for the reason behind the piece. What is their stance on the topic? The Abstract section sums up their argument but the author does not provide a clear-cut thesis statement.
The Purpose of the overall site goes back to the part above regarding the mission statement. As we detailed in the Authority section, there are a number of red flags regarding the Purpose that one should be aware of before using this source. The same applies here.
The site is a non-profit as already stated, but they are also still trying to "sell" their point of view on the matter of bullying and pediatrics that is clearly linked to their mission statement, vision, and core principles.

Overall Evaluation

This source does not evaluate well and probably should not be used, but that entirely depends on the topic of your paper. If your paper is providing an alternative viewpoint, than this source may work just fine, but with the issues we laid out above, we'd recommend looking for a source that covered the same material and evaluates better.

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