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Psychology (PSY) - Library Research Guide

Why Evaluate Sources?

In many college writing assignments, you'll be incorporating outside sources intended to strengthen your argument or analysis. These sources will need to be reliable and convincing to an educated audience.
What makes a source reliable? You can use a set of criteria to help determine whether or not a source is credible and suitable for an academic paper.

Evaluating Sources: Criteria to Consider

CRAAP Criteria
Use the CRAAP criteria to determine whether or not an outside source is credible.

This set of criteria encourages you to think critically about the reliability of outside sources. However, also keep in mind the importance of context. Your assignment instructions will provide you with necessary context.
Sources that are lacking in one or more categories (criteria) are probably not appropriate for academic writing.