Evaluate Your Evidence
8 Getting Starting Evaluating Evidence
A crucial stage in the search process is determining if the resources you find are quality sources. This is because you want to know if you can trust the information you find and whether it is appropriate for your purpose. This requires you to evaluate the sources before you use them in your assignment.
Tips
Before you begin the chapter, take a look at these top tips for conducting your search.
- Evaluate everything you find as you’re searching.
Remember not everything you find online is reliable. And depending on your topic, you may need your information more current. Think about what types of resources you need and evaluate each one as you’re searching. With practice, this step will become second-nature! - Use an evaluation checklist.
Use the Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose (CRAAP) Evaluation Checklist, or another evaluation tool when selecting websites. These evaluation tools will help you identify the best possible resources for your assignment. - Evaluate journal articles critically.
Just because they are published in academic journals, does not mean they shouldn’t be evaluated for validity. Take a look at the article sections, and evaluate information shared by the authors critically. If a claim made in a journal article seems at odds with consensus, try to find other articles that back up or dispute the claims made. For example, one article may be published about the benefits of an alternative health method. However, consensus from various academic journals may dispute this claim, and the first article can be ignored. - Consider content in open access journals.
Some open access journals are more reliable than others. Whenever using this type of an information source, try to find out as much as possible about the journal itself, and its article selection process.
Important Terms Used in this Chapter
Explore the content below for information and tools to help you evaluate your sources.
Evaluating Journal Articles
Academic journal articles communicate or describe research on a specific subject. Scholarly journal articles present original research, while other comment on previously published research on a topic, in literature reviews.
When evaluating academic journal articles for quality, take a look at the individual sections of the paper.
Understanding The CRAAP Test
The CRAAP Test is a method for quickly evaluating sources for quality. It stands for Currency, Relevancy, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Watch the video to learn about the CRAAP Test. The video includes some questions to check your knowledge of each component of the CRAAP Test. You can also see a text-based version of this interactive video by downloading the CRAAP Test transcript.
Evaluation Checklists
Evaluation checklists can be handy tools for evaluating sources. In addition to general checklists, some checklists are especially relevant to the health sciences; these are sometimes called critical appraisal tools. Consult the evaluation checklists and tools for help evaluating sources.
Evaluation Checklists:
- CRAAP Evaluation Checklist
- JBI Critical Appraisal Tools
A well-respected set of tools for different types of studies, including systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials, and qualitative research.
- For attributions, please see the Attributions page in the table of contents. ↵
Critical appraisal tools are resources to help you evaluate journal articles and other materials. They are often presented as checklists.
In the context of these modules (and in the context of Evidence-Based Practice), evidence refers to the results of scientific research. Evidence can be ranked using the hierarchy of evidence.
Evidence-based (or evidence-informed) practice means using current best evidence in making decisions about the care of the individual patient. It means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available clinical evidence from research.
Source: Module One: Intro to EBP by Duke University Medical Center Library and the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.
Typically illustrated as a pyramid, the hierarchy of evidence is a way of ranking the “best evidence,” from weaker methods at the bottom to stronger methods such as meta-analysis and systematic reviews at the top.
