Have you ever read something that you suspected was fake news? In this week’s reading you will learn about strategies for determ
ining if a source is credible. One of those strategies is the CRAAP Test. Currency: Is the information up to date?
Relevance: Is the information relevant to your research needs?
Authority: Who is the source of the information?
Accuracy: How reliable and truthful is the information? Can the information be verified?
Purpose: Why does the information exist?
How can the CRAAP Test help you when you look at news and articles in the future?
If you follow the steps proposed by the CRAAP test you can check whether the one responsible for the news/article(s) has any motivation to favor one side of the story, if the story is relevant, for instance, what is more relevant for the future of a nation? A governmental transaction or what a famous person has to say about Trump or Obama? Maybe highlighting the latter would be a strategy to hide or diminish the impact of the former piece of news, a smoke screen because itis easier to dwelve into what somebody says, gossip, than to check the truthfulness of some information about what is going on with some politicians.
Also, sometimes people get half of the story or are simply misled to believe a distortion of the true facts, that is why it is important to check if the information is verifiable and indeed if the information is true.
