E01¶


Research	R0050 — Journalism Disciplines
Run	2026-03-31-02
Query	Q002
Source	SRC07
Evidence	SRC07-E01
Type	Factual

SIFT contributes lateral reading as a novel verification strategy; CRAAP is largely redundant

URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRAAP_test

Extract¶

CRAAP Test (Blakeslee 2004): Five evaluation dimensions: - Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose

SIFT Method (Caulfield 2019): Four verification moves: - Stop — pause before engaging - Investigate the source - Find better coverage - Trace claims to original context

Novel concept from SIFT: Lateral reading — instead of evaluating a source by reading it closely (vertical reading), immediately leave the source and check what other sources say about it. This is a procedural innovation not captured by any of the nine reference frameworks. All reference frameworks evaluate sources by examining the source itself; SIFT explicitly directs the evaluator to leave the source and triangulate externally first.

CRAAP novelty assessment: CRAAP's five dimensions (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose) are substantially captured by GRADE (relevance, reliability) and Cochrane (bias assessment). The "Purpose" dimension (understanding why information was created) overlaps with historical source criticism's "tendency" assessment. CRAAP contributes no concepts beyond the reference set.

Relevance to Hypotheses¶

Hypothesis	Relationship	Strength
H1	Partially supports	SIFT is novel; CRAAP is not
H2	Partially supports	Mixed results across the two frameworks
H3	Contradicts	Both are clearly structured

Context¶

SIFT was specifically developed to counter post-2016 misinformation and represents the information literacy community's response to the same challenges that prompted the Wardle-Derakhshan taxonomy. Its lateral reading approach has been empirically validated as more effective than CRAAP-style vertical evaluation.