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Searching for online information: Welcome

For further education students

What is Information Literacy?

(Seminole State College, 2022).

The CRAAP Test for Evaluating Information

Fact checking: the SIFT method

Check the facts using the SIFT method to compare website content
STOP

Ask yourself what you know about the website - do you trust the source?

Keep in mind the type of information you need, don't click on links aimlessly.

INVESTIGATE Do a quick search on a search engine or Wikipedia  to find out about the publisher or creator of the website content.
FIND If a website makes a claim about something, can you find other sources that agree with or disagree with the claim? Is there a consensus about this information?
TRACE Try to find the original source of the information, to check whether it has been edited, adapted or stripped of context.

 

How to spot fake news

1. Identify your Information Need

What type of information do you need to help build your argument?

Break down the assignment title and identify keywords, synonyms and other ways of describing the topic.

  • Your lecturer may recommend scholarly articles and original research.
  • However, if you are describing an event that happened recently, information may only be available from news sources, blogs and magazines. 

2. Find information

Run your search on a search engine or website. Remember, different keywords will retrieve different results so it's a good idea to run several searches.

3. Evaluate Information on the Web

4. Apply the information

Apply the information in your work, by quoting it, or putting it into your own words, or inserting images and graphs.

5. Always acknowledge your sources

Referencing is when you acknowledge that you have used someone else's material or ideas in your own work.

  • It allows the reader to source the information you have used
  • It shows the research you have carried out for your work and helps you to back up your arguments
  • It indicates when you are using someone else's work so that you're not accused on plagiarism, cheating or copying

Keeping track of your sources

  • Bookmark sites on your browswer and create folders for your topics. Here's how to bookmark on Chrome but you can bookmark sites on any browser.
  • Use a reference manager such as Zotero or Mendeley to keep track ot the sources you use.

Phrase searching

Subject Guide