CRAP Test
Make sure your Google search results are reliable by using the CRAP test!
Currency: Is there a publish date? If not, how do you know how old it is? Do they mention recent research or is it all old info? Do the links still work?
Relevance: Skim it to make sure it's relevant to your research before you invest time in reading the whole thing.
Authority: Who is the author? What qualifies them to speak on the subject?
Purpose: Why was this website published? To make money? To inform? To sway your opinion on something? Always identify the biases that authors/companies have.
Sometimes you find websites published by companies you trust (like the ones below), but sometimes you need to do some extra investigating to see if you can trust the source.
- Vanity Fair Details about the two-museum exhibition of Mapplethorpe's work in L.A., and an uncensored HBO documentary from 2016.
- Out Magazine Patti Smith comments on a new coffee table book, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Archive, which sheds light on the photographer's creative process.
- The Guardian Jack Fritscher relives his love affair with Robert Mapplethorpe
- NY Magazine Profile Patti Smith, along with her friend Robert Mapplethorpe, lived a particular New York dream—the Chelsea Hotel, Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, superstardom—to the fullest. Now in a great new memoir, she tells it like it was.
Let's inspect the New York Magazine article.
Currency: It has a published date of Jan 10, 2010
Relevance: The article talks about the book Just Kids, so if I had already read the book and was looking for more info, this wouldn't be the most relevant site. However, if I was just looking for examples and quotes from the book, this would be a great place to start!
Authority: If you click the author's name you'll see a list of all the other articles she's written. But if you Google her name, then you find out she's been a journalist since graduating from Wesleyan University, working at the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair. She has won multiple journalism awards.
Purpose: They want readership, so they probably picked examples from the book that have mass appeal or catch your attention. It's not a paid advertisement for the book, so the author has more freedom to be honest in her review.
Background Info
There are other ways to find background info, if you don't want to have to worry so much about the reliability of info on Wikipedia.
Try searching published encyclopedias and reference books instead! You can use Credo Reference to search tons of eBooks for background info on topics!
