Research Tutorials

Once you've begun finding sources, you will need to make the determination to seriously consider them for use. In other words, you have to get choosy.

Remember, in scholarly research, you want quality over quantity. If you are having trouble finding enough quality sources for your instructor's requirements, consider revising your search location and/or strategy.

You likely won't (and shouldn't) use every source you find. Even if a source makes the cut and you decide to use it, you may never end up working it into your assignment.

The CRAAP Test (developed by Sarah Blakeslee at California State U, Chico) is a guideline for evaluating the quality of a source. Use the worksheet to evaluate source by answering each question and ranking each of the 5 parts from 1 to 10 (1=unreliable, 10=excellent). Once completed, add up the scores and determine whether the website is one you'd use the resource for an academic paper.

Note: This is a guideline, not a prescriptive list. Use your critical thinking skills to make conscious decisions about whether or not you will use a particular source.

Evaluating Websites

It is especially important to critically evaluate any websites you reference because information found on the Internet is not regulated in the way that information in databases and in scholarly journals is regulated. You are more likely to run into information that is inaccurate, outdated, and/or biased. You may also have a harder time determining the origin of the information (author, publisher, whether the content is original).

Website URLs

The old standby that .com URLs are bad, whereas .edu, .org, and .gov are fine is overly simplified.

In health care, dates are very important when analyzing information, so if you find information from a .gov site that hasn't been updated since 1998, it is probably information you might want to scrutinize. In addition, trade publications often have .com domains, but contain valuable quality information. A lot more goes into analyzing results than just the domain.