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Web Sites Can Be Good Sources:
* Some sites are from authoritative sources, for example: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General
* Some sites are comprehensive, for example: cancer.gov
* Some sites are very current, for example: The New York Times and FindLaw: Legal News and Commentary
* Some sites clearly acknowledge their biases, for example: NARAL Pro-Choice America and Operation Save America
* The Web is available 24 hours a day, and many sites are free
Web Sites Can Be Bad Sources:
* Some sites are of low quality, for example: Steroids and Presidents Graves Home Page
* Some sites do not acknowledge their commercial interests, for example: Melatonin.com and AIM: Alcohol in Moderation
* Some sites do not acknowledge their allegiances, for example: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research , The Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment, The Heritage Foundation, The Pacific Legal Foundation, RU486Facts.org, and The RU486 Files
* Some sites are of questionable scholarship, for example: Did Six Million Really Die from the Institute for Historical Review and Martin Luther King Jr. - A True Historical Examination from Stormfront
* Some sites are simply hoaxes, for example: RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center, Dog Island, and Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity
Evaluation Criteria
Some commonly accepted criteria used to evaluate sources include:
* Accuracy: "exact, precise, correct, as the result of care" -- does the site misstate or misrepresent facts? does the site contain errors?
* Authority: "an expert" -- who created the site and what are their affiliations and credentials?
* Bias: "to incline to one side" -- does the site offer a point of view or opinion?
* Coverage: "the extent of reporting" -- how much information is there?
* Currency: "in progress" -- when was the site last updated? how new is the information?
Evaluate sites based on these criteria. Do not use sites that fail your evaluation: there are plenty of other good sites you can use. Consider searching the Internet Public Library.
Web Site Domains
Domains do not guarantee the quality or integrity of a site. For example, the personal page of a professor or college student could be in the .edu domain, but that relationship does not validate what the person says. Sometimes, such sites have a tilde ~ in their address.
These web site domains are restricted, only certain organizations can use them: .aero, .coop, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, & .museum
These web site domains are unrestricted, anyone can use them: .biz, .com, .info, .name, .net, .org, & .pro
More Information
Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask (UC Berkeley)
Evaluating Internet Sources (Purdue)
Five criteria for evaluating Web pages (Cornell)
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