INDS  

Keywords

LC Subject Headings

Key Concepts

Terminology

Key Resources

Oft-Cited Authors

Overviews

Books

Journal and magazine articles

Internet resources

Government documents

Invisible web

Evaluate for quality & reliability

Be a critical consumer of information.  You wouldn't trust a stranger you met on the street to provide information for a paper you were writing, so why would you trust strangers when they publish information online?  Keep the CRAAP analysis in mind as you evaluate materials.

Currency  Refers to the timeliness of the information.  How recently has this information been updated?  How important is having recently published information for your topic? 

Relevancy   Is the information useful in the context in which you plan on using it?  Is it appropriate for college-level research?  Is it the best information out there, or could you find better, more complete info elsewhere? 

Authority  Who is publishing this information?  Does he/she/the organization have a background that makes them experts in this subject matter?  How do you know?

Accuracy  Is the information correct?  Are there spelling or grammatical errors?  If so, you may want to question the accuracy of the information on the site.  Does the website cite any sources?  Where is the author getting his/her information? 

Purpose  Why has the information been published on the web?  To entertain? to sell a product or service?  To inform?  Does the author have any biases?  Might this lead to the information being less credible?