The CRAAP test is a list of simple questions you can ask to help you evaluate literature resource items.

You should select questions which are relevant to the type or resource you are evaluating.

Click on a button to see a list of questions.

Click here to try out the CRAAP test

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CRAAP Test

 

Beware Drop Bears and Unreliable Information!

 

The CRAAP test and others like it are filtering tests.  A final assessment depends on your knowledge of your discipline.

Look at the article linked below.

 

Does it pass the CRAAP test?

Is it accurate and reliable?

Look out for the drop bears!  When all seems well the drop bears may strike.

 

 

Click on the cross at the top to close

 

Four Moves and a Habit is a skillset originally designed by Michael Caulfield in his book, Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers. 

Visit Oregon State University's Four Moves and a Habit page for a succinct summary of the concept. In particular, check out the discussion questions and activities at the bottom of the page. 

The four moves, now also known by the acronym SIFT, are:

• Stop
  Take a minute. Don't use or share information until you know what it is you're looking at. 
• Investigate the Source
  Knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say.  
• Find better coverage
  Read laterally - find multiple sources to gather a consensus. 
• Trace claims, quotes and media to the original coverage
  Sources can be stripped of context to portray an event in a certain light. Finding the original coverage may be illuminating. 
   

The habit: Check your emotions. 

From Caulfield's book: 

"The habit is simple. When you feel a strong emotion—happiness, anger, pride, vindication—and that emotion pushes you to share a “fact” with others, stop. Above all, these are the claims that you must fact-check.

Why? Because you’re already likely to check things you know are important to get right, and you’re predisposed to analyze things that put you in an intellectual frame of mind. But things that make you angry or overjoyed, well…our record as humans is not good with these things."

We may think we can always tell when a news headline is ridiculous, outlandish, satire or parody, but how good are we really? FakeOut is a short game designed by a Canadian civic education organisation. Without being able to apply any of the tests on this page, it might be harder than you think to separate fact from fiction. That's why it's important to consider information from multiple angles.