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COMP 1000: Composition Fall 2024 (Femiani)

Evaluation Criteria

Before you trust an information source, it is important that you use your critical thinking skills to evaluate it! To do this, you might use an evaluation criterion, such as SIFT, RADAR, or ACT UP, as are described below. 

What I really want for you to take from this page, is that no matter where your information is coming from, please stop, and think about the information that you are looking at before you trust it and ultimately use it yourself!

SIFT

SIFT is an evaluation criteria that was created by Mike Caufield at Washington State University in 2019, primarily created to evaluate web sources. Use the SIFT criteria to build your digital literacy skills.

SIFT means:

  • Stop
  • Investigate the source
  • Find better coverage
  • Trace the claims

"SIFT (The Four Moves)" by Mike Caufield is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

RADAR

RADAR is evaluation criteria that was originally created by Jane Mandalios in 2013. The RADAR framework challenges users to look at a source, and evaluate the source for:

  • Relevance 
  • Authority
  • Date
  • Appearance 
  • Reason for writing

Mandalios, Jane. "RADAR: An Approach for Helping Students Evaluate Internet Sources. Journal of Information Science, vol. 39, no. 4, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551513478889

ACT UP

The ACT UP criteria is an evaluation criteria that was created by Dawn Stahura, at Salem State University in 2017. This evaluation criteria challenges users to evaluate a source with special consideration to the following factors about a source:

  • Author
  • Created
  • Truth
  • Unbiased
  • Privilege

"ACT UP - Evaluation Method" by Dawn Stahura is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.