When you form an opinion about the quality of a piece of information before using it in your academic work, you have been evaluating a source.
It is important to do this to ensure that the information you use is as accurate as possible. By taking care to choose only the best sources of information for your work, you make it:
Academic work is taken more seriously if it is based on generally respected sources of information. However, advances in technology, and the spread of the internet, have made it very easy for unreliable information to spread quickly across the world.
Lateral Reading
Lateral reading assumes that many websites may contain unsubstantiated claims, distortions of the truth, and lack of academic rigour, despite presenting themselves as credible sources. Thus, lateral reading suggests that the first action to take when evaluating a source is to look up its details on other, ideally trusted, websites.
You can use other websites to discover:
- if the author is who they claim to be, and if they have genuine expertise
- if your source is in some way controversial. For example, it might support an extreme and not scientifically verifiable view of of the world
- how your source is funded. The person or organisation behind a source's funding may have a lot of influence over its content
- if the facts in your source also appear on other reliable websites
There are two main approaches to evaluating sources:
Lateral reading advocates looking beyond the source itself. For example, a key step to evaluating a source using lateral reading could be looking up the author on Wikipedia.
The CRAAP Test recommends focusing on the source, and asking questions about different aspects of it.
By combining aspects of both methods, you can achieve good results.
You can find out more about both lateral reading and the CRAAP Test on the right.
The CRAAP Test
The CRAAP Test asks you to look at a source, and form an opinion on its quality based on five criteria. These are:
Currency - when was your source created? Is it up-to-date?
Relevance - is the information in the source relevant to your topic?
Authority - who is the author? Do they have expertise (for example, academic qualifications) in the subject area?
Accuracy - where does the information come from? Is it supported by evidence?
Purpose - what is the intent of the source? Do you suspect it of bias?
Visit the library's Moodle page on research skills to find more resources about evaluating sources. In addition, many universities also offer good, free support on this topic.