Developed by librarians at California State University-Chico, the CRAAP Test is an older checklist evaluation tool originally designed to evaluate websites and web content.
The test provides a list of questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not a source is reliable and credible enough to use in your academic research paper.
CRAAP is an acronym that stands for the individual elements to search for in a web source:
Keep in mind: the CRAAP test guides you to examine the content and links within a website you're on, which is called vertical reading. This is different than the contextual lateral reading method used in the newer SIFT or SWIFT method, which asks you to verify information on the website with other sources.
Image used courtesy of CC license from Georgia Southern University.