Educ 201: Foundations for Teaching

Ask yourself these questions as you evaluate information that you find on the web:

Currency

• When was the site last updated? Be suspicious if today's date is on the site; it is easy to program a web site to display today's date, even if it hasn't been updated in years.
• If there are links to other sites, do they work? Dead links are a sign that a page has not been updated in a long time.

Relevance

• Is the material written at a level that is too basic or too advanced for your purposes?
• Is your topic the main focus of the site, or is your topic just mentioned briefly?

Authority

• Who wrote the page? What can you find out about that person or organization? What else have they written? 
• If the site is connected to an organization, what is its mission? What else can you find out about it?
• If it is a person, are his or her credentials legitimate? Are the credentials relevant to the topic? What do other experts say about him or her?
• Is there contact information for the author or the organization?

Accuracy

• Are there references to sources that support the claims made? Are they from academic/research journals or other reliable sources? Follow up on some to see if they are legitimate.
• Can you verify any factual information in another source: your textbook, an encyclopedia, your own personal knowledge?
• Are there spelling or grammar errors? Are there typos on the page?
• If there are links to other sites, do those sites appear reliable to you?

Purpose

• What is the purpose of the web site? To present research, to persuade, to entertain, to sell a product?
• Who is the intended audience for the web site? Who is the author writing for?
• Is there evidence of bias in the facts presented or the language used? Does the author dismiss conflicting opinions without proof or does he or she offer proof with references or data?
• Is there advertising on the site? What kind of advertising (pop-up ads, banner ads, small text ads)? Is the advertising related to the content or not? What does that tell you about the reliability of the site?
   

Based on work done by the librarians at Meriam Library, California State University at Chico (http://www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf, updated Sept. 17, 2010).  The questions are adapted from from Burkhardt, MacDonald, and Rathemacher, Teaching Information Literacy: 35 Practical, Standards-based Exercises for College Students (Chicago: ALA, 2003), pp. 76-77.

How do I determine which databases are most pertinent to a given topic?

Determine what discipline your topic falls in. Then check to see what databases subject librarians have recommended for given disciplines by checking research guides (library home page > "Research by Subject" > select a subject > "Articles" tab). Read the descriptions of the recommended databases and take one out for a test drive.

Is it better to find articles that are scholarly or newspaper articles?

Consider the purpose of your search. Are you looking for recent information on a topic written for the general public by a journalist? If so, search in newspapers. Are you looking for primary sources of original research on a topic? If yes, you will search in the scholarly literature. Often your searches in this class will take you into both popular and scholarly literature. You may read about original research in a newspaper article, and then follow up with finding the actual original research in the scholarly literature.
 

How do I know how valid an article is? Will my judgment be enough to go by?

Questions to ask yourself: who is the author? What are his or her credentials? Can you substantiate the information in other sources? How current is the article? Do you recognize bias in the article? What is the reputation of the source in which the article is appearing? Is there a bibliography? Who is the author citing in his or her work? Does the author's name come up repeatedly in searches on the topic - is the author important in the field?

What's the best way to see if a source is reliable?

Checking the "peer-reviewed" box in databases will ensure that you only retrieve rigorously reviewed, scholarly articles. This table lists websites that are useful for evaluating information on the web.

Reference: Daniel Poynter, Crap Detection 101