Evaluating Websites

Image taken from canberra.edu.au

About this Tutorial

Faculty:This tutorial is intended to help students establish a set of criteria for evaluating information found on the Internet. It will also help them identify the common types of URLs.

Students:This tutorial will:• Help you understand how to evaluate information found on the Internet• Define the term “URL.”• Identify the various types of websites and their purpose.

This tutorial will take you about 20 minutes to complete.

This tutorial meets the following ACRL standards:

1.1e1.2d2.2c

2.4a3.1a

What to watch for…

Notes – These are to let you know there is important information you need to know about what is being covered.

In the course of your research you will encounter an infinite number of Internet resources. They can be wonderful resources for research papers.

But the fact is anyone can publish ANYTHING on the Web, so don’t believe everything you read. It is up to you to critically evaluate the quality of material on the Web.

It is up to you to make sure that the information you use for your coursework is quality information. This can sometimes be difficult when there is so much information available.

Use the following checklist to make sure an Internet source is appropriate for your research.

By checking for these 5 things you can determine if a website provides reliable information that you can use for your research or if the source of the information is biased or unreliable.

Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Accuracy:It is easy to tell right away if a website is not accurate when many words are misspelled or the text is written more like personal opinion than fact.

But what about a website that is well written and seems to have all the facts? Part of doing research is to verify that what someone is writing about is really true or factual. This means you should look at multiple sources to see if they present the same facts.

Make sure your facts are on target by checking the accuracy of the facts you take from a website.

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It is important to know who the information comes from. Many times you may have a reliable organization that allows someone to buy space on their server, and the information that person puts on the Internet may not be reliable.

Just because a website looks professional and the information seems to be well-written doesn’t mean that the person writing the information has the education and training that would make them credible sources of information.

You need to determine who the author of the information is and what his or her credentials or qualifications are.

Objectivity:un

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You need to ask yourself:•What is the purpose of the information on

this website?• Are they trying to inform? Persuade? Sell

something?• Do they provide balanced information and

cover both sides of an issue?• Does the information show a minimum of

bias?

Often a website that may seem fair at first may have an agenda to convince the reader of their point of view. This works well if the reader understands that this is the purpose of the site and uses the information accordingly.

Bias doesn’t always make a site less credible but it does mean that usually only one side of an issue is being represented and you will need to find another site that fairly represents the other point of view.

Currency:htt

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You’ve probably heard the saying, “time is money.” In this case currency doesn’t refer to money, but it does sometimes indicate how the value of the information. Currency refers to how current or recent the information is.

Currency becomes especially important when doing research about recent events. You want to make sure the sources you use for your research have the most current information. But if you are doing historical research currency can be important, too. You want those materials that present the most recent research done on your topic. You can then compare the recent thoughts to what was written previously.

Coverage:

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• How much information does your source present?

• Is the information broad in scope, or does it focus on one

specific aspect of the subject?

• Does it address a topic from a certain time frame and/or

geographic area?

Depending on your research, you may need information sources that are more or less specific. For general information you might use an online encyclopedia or a popular e-magazine. If you need more in-depth information you might go to a subject specific website or access online scholarly journal through one of the university’s databases. You need to determine your information needs and then find resources that will provide the right kind of information to adequately cover your topic.

Types of URLSA URL is a website address. It stands for Uniform Resource Locator. There are many different types of URLs and when you learn what kind of information they provide then you can determine which ones are best for your research.

blog.vortixgames.com Here are the most common types of web addresses:

.edu – refers to a U.S. college or university

.cc.(state).us – refers to a community college

.k12.(state).us – refers to a school with grades K-12

.gov – refers to a government agency, official, or organization

.com – refers to a business or commercial enterprise

.org – refers to a non-profit organization or trade association

.mil – refers to a military site

.net – refers to a network administrations organization

blog.vortixgames.com

Some websites provide information or news. Some attempt to influence public opinion or persuade the reader to agree with a certain point of view, or sell a product. Some are meant to entertain and others are simply personal pages.

More and more people are choosing to embed their own personal pages into other websites which blurs the lines of the website’s purpose and the validity of the website’s information.

Make sure you understand who is providing the information and what their credentials are before you quote them in a paper or other projects.

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Remember that you can review this tutorial anytime on the library website and if you have more questions then ask a librarian at the Reference Desk.

It can be overwhelming when you realize how much information is out there, but now you have the tools to navigate it all and choose what is best for you.

Thanks for learning about how to evaluate URLs!