TO READ ACTIVELY YOU MUST read critically, evaluating sources
for authoritativeness, accuracy, objectivity, and bias. This
is especially true when you are searching the Internet for information.
Anyone can publish on the Internet; therefore, not everything
you read on the Net is a credible source. How do you know whether
to trust the information you have found on a web site? The following
is a list of questions to ask. If the web site is a credible
source, it will provide answers to these questions.
Using the following questions, choose a site on a topic that
interest you and evaluate it. Then share your findings with
the rest of the class.
- Who says so? Who publishes the web site, and what are the
author's qualifications? Can you determine where the author
lives and works? What degrees and awards does the author
hold? What is the author's reputation in his or her field?
- Is the information objective? Is the author or publisher
self-interested? What does the author have to gain from publishing
this information? For example, you can expect a company to
endorse its own products. You can also expect information
provided by special interest groups to reflect their biases.
- How current is the information? One of the virtues of the
Internet is that web sties have the potential for immediacy
of data. However, some web sites are not kept current. Can
you find a date on the web page that indicates when the information
was last updated or revised?
- 4. How extensive is the coverage of the information? What
is the purpose of the site? Is the site linked to other sites
or pages, and if so, are the links of the same quality as
that of the original page? It she site organized in such a
way that you can easily find the answers to your questions
or the specific information related to the issue that you
are researching?
Here are some URLs with information on evaluating Internet sources.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html
http://www.library.ucla.edu/biomed/tutorials/searchweb.html
http://thorplus.lib.purdue.edu/~techman/eval.html
http://library.albany.edu/internet/evaluate.html
http://www.tulane.edu/~html/eval.htm Also, check your college's web site for any information it may
have on evaluating Internet sources.
