So, now you’ve found some good sites: should you use them? It’s useful to ask these questions of web sites you’re considering using for your research paper:
Who is responsible for
the site? – Look for an “About Us”,
“Statement of Purpose” or “Who We Are” link. If no link back to the “Home” site
is available, you can truncate the web site address by erasing everything after
the first “/”, and hit enter. You can also find out who owns a site by going to
http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml.
Who do they link to? You can tell a lot about a site on the web by
looking at who they link to. Go to Google and type link: and the full address
of the site you’re interested in. (link:www.whatever.org)
What are the authors’ credentials? What you want to determine here is bias.
|
Did you
know? There are many more
domain descriptors that explain which country the web page originates from.
Check out http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
and http://www.icann.org/tlds/ for a
list and explanation. |
What type of site is it?
In the
.edu
– educational
.gov
– government
.mil – military
.com, .org, .net – anyone
can have!
Hint: If the site claims to
be a large international professional corporation or membership, but is using a “aol.members.com” domain, that’s a dead giveaway.
When was the site created
or updated? Does the site have a
“last updated” date on the bottom or the side of the page? Sometimes, this is
hard to find. Many sites, like weather and news sites, are real-time, and are
created anew when you visit that site. Undated, uncited
factual or statistical information should not be used.
Why was this site
created? Do they say? Are they
trying to sell something? To persuade you of their opinion?
Why are advertisements (if any) there? Do the ads relate to the site, or are
they just flashing, blinking, pop-up things? Why should you trust them? Why are
they giving this info away for free? It isn’t free for them. Can you
find any support for their argument in regular encyclopedias, books, and
journals?
Where can you find more
information? Is
there a name, address, phone number, and email address on the site? Is there
documentation (links or footnotes) for factual statements and second hand
information? Are there links to other viewpoints or publishers?
More web sites to help
you judge the useful stuff from the junk:
You be the Judge! Evaluating
Information for Reliability - Washington State Library: http://www.librarysmart.com/working/LSPublic/01_evaluate.asp
Keep up on the changing
nature of search engines: http://www.searchenginewatch.com