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WR100 Help Guide: Evaluating Websites

Use this guide to help you with your Effective Writing assignments from off-campus.

Evaluating Websites

You will need to evaluate a website's content to determine if it is reliable and relevant to your research, but this can be tricky, especially with online sources.

You could apply the C.R.A.A.P. Test as a starting point to asses the credibility of information sources located online:

  • Currency
  • Reliability
  • Authority
  • Accuracy
  • Purpose

Remember that it's not exactly a question of "good" or "bad" - it just depends on your purpose. And if you can't use a particular source for some reason, you might be able to use it to find something else - maybe an idea about your topic, or a reference to a scholarly journal article that you could track down. 

Websites: Questions to Consider

The 5 W's of Information Evaluation

Evaluation Checklists and Other Resources