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Evaluating information

Learn why it’s important to evaluate your sources, how to use the CRAAP Test and SIFT process, and how to respectfully assess information about Indigenous peoples and knowledges.

It can be tricky to know if your sources (like journal articles, websites, videos, and news) are reliable. You can use the CRAAP Test to evaluate scholarly and AI content, the SIFT tool for news and social media and the Indigenous Knowledges Attribution Tree to help you make decisions about whether information is right for your assessment.

Why should I evaluate my sources?

  • Not everything posted online or published in an article is accurate.
  • Your teachers want you to use reliable sources.
  • Good sources help you develop thinking skills and get better marks.

What is the CRAAP Test?

The CRAAP Test is designed to help you evaluate scholarly or academic information sources, like journal articles and books, as well as websites or online information like government documents.

Use the CRAAP test questions to think critically about the different types of information to use in your assignments.

The CRAAP Test checklist

Evaluating AI-generated material

You can use a modified version of the CRAAP Test to evaluate AI-generated material before using AI tools in your assessments. If you want to learn more about using AI safely at university, check out the Generative artificial intelligence: Use at University guide.

Why should I evaluate AI-generated material?

  • Recognise when AI output is misleading or incorrect.
  • Understand the risks and how to avoid them.
  • Avoid losing marks for obvious mistakes.
  • Spot fake news, deep fakes and misleading information.

Evaluate AI outputs

Evaluating news, blogs and social media

While scholarly sources go through a thorough review process, news (including newspaper articles, news blogs, TV news and social media posts) can be written and posted online very quickly and without being fact checked. Information about the publisher, date and original source are often missing or misleading.

What is the SIFT evaluation process?

The SIFT evaluation process offers quick, practical actions for evaluating social media and news when key information (such as the original author, date, and references) can be missing or easily faked. 

Why use SIFT?

  • Save time by focusing on the facts you can easily trace and verify.  
  • Recognise when to use scholarly sources over news or social media.
  • Get better marks by using the right sources for your assessment.
  • Spot fake news or misleading information.
  • Make smarter decisions based on facts, not opinions.

Can I still use the CRAAP test for news and social media?

You can absolutely use the CRAAP Test for news and social media if you prefer. 

SIFT

Evaluating Indigenous Knowledges

Not all sources of information can be assessed in the same way. While there are clear categories to help check that a scholarly source is trustworthy, many other types of information will not fit neatly into these checklists. One example of this is knowing how to evaluate information about Indigenous Peoples and Knowledges.  

Why should I evaluate Indigenous Knowledges?

  • Know how to find a variety of information sources depending on your topic.
  • Show that you are aware of biases.
  • Know how acknowledge Indigenous Knowledges respectfully.
  • Be respectful of other cultures and ways of being.  

Faulkhead et al. (2023) from the Indigenous Archive Collective have released the Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges toolkit to help you make decisions about whether information is right for your assessment.