Scan your online resources for easy-to-spot red flags.
These can help you determine whether a website is credible enough to use in a research paper.
Website does not look professionally designedClick away from the story to investigate the site, its mission, and its contact info
Headlines can be outrageous in an effort to get clicks. What's the whole story?
Do a quick search on the author. Are they credible? Are they real?
Click on those links. Determine if the info given actually supports the story.
Reposting old news stories doesn't mean they're relevant to current events.
If it's too outlandish, it may be satire. Research the author and site to be sure.
Consider if your own beliefs could affect your judgement.
Ask a librarian or consult a fact-checking site.
Image Source: IFLA
With resources like Google at our fingertips, information isn't hard to find. What is challenging is determining whether that information is credible and can be trusted. Is it factual? Biased? Relevant to your topic?
A Google search is often our first stop to gain a basic understanding of the main ideas about a topic, but since anyone with access to a computer can publish anything online, it is crucial that you evaluate the information you find, especially when completing a research paper, or looking for important information (like health or financial information).
Web sources can be particularly hard to evaluate, so we've developed this handy acronym to help you determine if a source may be CRAP.
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