Assignment 2 – Gathering Evidence

Learning Objectives Covered

• Assess and evaluate academic source reliability using the CRAAP (currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose) method.
• I will be writing about “The importance of a college degree.” USE PROQUEST TO FIND TWO STRONG SOURCES FOR YOUR PAPER. LIST THE IWG CITATION FOR EACH SOURCE, CAREFULLY EVALUATE EACH SOURCE, DECIDE WHAT TO USE IN YOUR PAPER.
• I will be including three examples for how to do these assignment

BACKGROUND

When people write in the workplace, they often have to decide how to solve problems based on conflicting evidence. Part of what will help you be successful at finding the best solutions will be getting the best evidence. The Modern Language Association (MLA) suggests we focus on the CRAAP method of evaluation when trying to determine the reliability and quality of sources (see Modern Language Association (2009).

CRAAP stands for:

• Currency
• Relevance
• Authority
• Accuracy
• Purpose

For this assignment, we will only focus on Currency, Authority, and Accuracy.

• Currency relates to the timeliness of the information. Was it written more than five years ago? If so, is there a source that uses more recent research?
• Authority relates to the source of the information. What makes the author an expert on the topic?
• Accuracy looks at the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content.

Prompt

For this assignment, you will evaluate two sources using the CRAAP method. Use the questions under each of the criteria to help answer if the source is strong. For each criteria area, give a value on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being very weak and 5 being very strong).

Notice that your assignment will evaluate the two sources separately, like this:

STEP 1: USE PROQUEST TO FIND TWO STRONG SOURCES FOR YOUR PAPER.

You can also use other academic resources such as Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com (Links to an external site.)) or EBSCO (found in our library). For the purposes of this assignment, strong sources are ones that have high ratings for currency, authority, and accuracy.

To select a source, do a quick CRAAP analysis to see if it is strong enough to use. You will do a more thorough analysis after you narrow down your choices to the two strongest ones.

NOTE: Wikipedia, Ask.com, and other crowd-sourced sites are never, ever acceptable sources for an academic paper.

STEP 2: LIST THE IWG CITATION FOR EACH SOURCE.

Follow the Institution Writing Guidelines to create a citation for your source.

STEP 3: CAREFULLY EVALUATE EACH SOURCE.

For each of the two sources from Step 1, assess the source’s currency, authority, and accuracy. Make sure to give each section a rating (for example, one to five stars). Make sure you answer the questions below.

Currency

When evaluating the currency of your two sources, answer the following questions for each one:

• When was the information published or posted?
• Has the information been revised or updated?
• Does your topic require current information, or will older sources work as well?
• Are the links functional?

Authority

Ask yourself these questions when evaluating Authority:

• Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor?
• What are the author’s credentials or organizational affiliations?
• Is the author qualified to write on the topic?
• Is there contact information, such as a publisher or email address?
• Does the URL reveal anything about the author or source? Examples: .gov, .edu

Accuracy

It can be difficult to analyze a source’s accuracy, because you may not be an expert on the topic. What you are looking for is evidence that the source was scrutinized by an expert. If there are problems you can see, there is a very good chance that the author did not have to ensure the site’s information was accurate. Here are the questions to ask:

• Where does the information come from?
• Is the information supported by evidence?
• Has the information been reviewed or refereed?
• Can you verify any of the information in another source or from personal knowledge?
• Does the language or tone seem unbiased and free of emotion?
• Are there spelling, grammar, or typographical errors?

STEP 4: DECIDE WHAT TO USE IN YOUR PAPER.

Once you have evaluated your sources, share either a direct quote, summary, or paraphrase from each source. These should be quotes/summaries/paraphrases that you plan on using in your paper. Make sure that you include the correct in-text citation for each one.

Your final assignments should be at least 300 words.

OPTIONAL SOURCES

You can click here to see optional sources for your essay.

I’ve included examples on how to do for this assignment along with links of how to do this assignment.

https://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&as_sdt=0,34

http://www.proquest.com/

Use the template below