LANG 1406 Academic English for Business Studies

As a first-year business student, it is essential for you to develop the ability to critically evaluate your information sources. Learning to assess the credibility, objectivity and currency of these diverse sources will help you make more informed decisions and avoid drawing conclusions from potentially biased or outdated information. Mastering this skill will serve you well throughout your academic and professional career in the world of business. You will also learned about evaluating information from your LANG 1406 teachers and in SDL 3: Critical Evaluation of Resources.

Remember:

• Published information is not necessarily trustworthy or useful.
• Always evaluate the credibility & suitability of information sources.

Watch this video (2 min) to learn more about evaluating information sources.

Lateral reading is a crucial skill for business students to master early on. Rather than simply diving into content, lateral reading trains you to quickly evaluate a source's credibility, identify potential biases, and find more authoritative references. This method helps you stay informed on the latest industry trends and developments, while cultivating critical thinking - key assets for making sound, data-driven decisions.

This video (3 min 33 sec) from the University of Louisville Library discusses how to conduct lateral reading:

CRAAP test is a method used to evaluate the credibility and reliability of information sources.

CRAAP stands for:

• Currency: When was the information created and published?
• Relevance: How the information fits your needs?
• Authority: Who created the information?
• Accuracy: How reliable and correct was the information?
• Purpose: What is the purpose of the information? Why was it created?

These five criteria help us critically assess the quality of the information and make better judgment about which sources to trust and use.

The SDL 3 of LANG 1406 provides you with detail information about the CRAAP test. You can also learn more about CRAAP by this guide from The University of Chicago Library.

Resources for fact-check:

• AFP Fact Check by The Agence France-Presse
• AP Fact Check by The Associated Press
• FactCheck.org® A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center
• Google Fact Check Explorer
• HKBU Fact Check by The Hong Kong Baptist University School of Communication