Evaluating Sources - Practice
Sample Topic - Fast fashion in college campus (esp. sports/ athletics)
- Source 1Ohlman, L. (2023, October 25). How fast fashion impacts athletic wear. FHC Sports Report. https://fhcsportsreport.com/28574/showcase/how-fast-fashion-impacts-athletic-wear/
- Source 2Muthu, S. S. (Ed.). (2019). Fast fashion, fashion brands and sustainable consumption. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1268-7
- Source 3Lee, H. J. (2024). A Study on Korean Customers’ Intentions to Repurchase for the Sustainable Growth of the Athleisure Market. Sustainability, 16(1), 69-. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16010069
Sample Topic - Invasive species in the Great Lakes
- Source 1The Nature Conservancy. (n.d.). Great Lakes aquatic invasive species management.
https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/priority-landscapes/great-lakes/great-lakes-aquatic-invasive-species-/ - Source 2Nissen, J. (2024, July 30). Great Lakes' worst invasive species ranked in new study, from zebra mussels to grass carp. Fox 2 Detroit.
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/great-lakes-worst-invasive-species-ranked-new-study-from-zebra-mussels-grass-carp - Source 3Albeck-Ripka, L. (2023, December 3). Once they were pets. Now giant goldfish are menacing the Great Lakes. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/science/goldfish-invasive-great-lakes.html
Sample Topic - Food waste
- Source 1Alic, M., PhD. (2019). Food Waste. In D. S. Hiam (Ed.), The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets (3rd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 545-550). Gale. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2491000141/GVRL?u=lom_calvincoll&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=17d7c981
- Source 2Food waste in America in 2025: statistics + facts. (n.d.). RTS.
https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/ - Source 3U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2025, January 1). Food loss and waste.
https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/food-loss-and-waste
Evaluation Criteria Checklists: Options
Checklist Option 1: "4 R's - In one popular public speaking textbook (Osborne, Public Speaking), the authors recommend that when evaluating sources, you ask if the source meets these criteria:
- Relevant
- Representative
- Recent
- Reliable
Checklist Option 2: "CRAAP" - Another set of evaluative criteria you may have heard before is "CRAAP":
- Currency
- Relevance
- Authority
- Accuracy
- Purpose
Checklist Option 3: "3 Scales" - In Hekman's "Introduction to Evaluation" video, we boil it down further to:
- Relevance
- Authority
- Bias
Summary: Any of these checklists can work! Choose your favorite, or the most memorable to you. But remember, considering the context (purpose and audience) of sources is critical in your evaluation.
Another Approach: SIFT and Lateral Reading
Information literacy researcher Mike Caulfield has developed another method of evaluating sources, called SIFT:
Image credit: Mike Caulfield's SIFT (Four Moves), which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Lateral Reading: A closely related approach is "lateral reading," a technique used by fact-checkers to go outside websites or sources to investigate based on external (rather than internal) information and clues.
For a more in-depth guide to using SIFT and lateral reading, check out this guide from Rowan University's library.