2. About this Tutorial
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.
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.
This tutorial meets the following ACRL standards:
1.1e 2.4a
1.2d 3.1a
2.2c
3. What to watch for…
Notes –
These are to let you know there
is important information you
need to know about what is
being covered.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Authority:
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.
You need to determine
who the author of the
information is and what
his or her credentials or
qualifications are.
Just because a website looks professional and
the information seems to be well-written
theaccidentalnegotiator.com
doesn’t mean that the person writing the
information has the education and training
that would make them credible sources of
information.
8. Objectivity:
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
unequalbalance.com
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.
9. Currency:
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
http://thewoodwhisperer.com/pricing-your-work/
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.
10. Coverage:
• 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.
big-umbrella.jpg
11. Types of URLS
blog.vortixgames.com
A 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.
Here are the most common types of web addresses:
blog.vortixgames.com
.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
12. 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.
13. It can be overwhelming
when you realize how
much information is out
there, but now you have
resources.bloguite.com
the tools to navigate it all
and choose what is best for
you.
Thanks for learning about
how to evaluate URLs!
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.
