If you don’t understand the tricks of the persuasion trade you’ll spend your entire adult life being

We ALL need to know how to figure out: What is a website's URL? Who published the website? What is linked to that website?

Is the information REAL? Read the URL - recognize the domain name? What about the extension? Is it a personal page? Examine the content - is it current? Are additional links given? Ask about the Author - is a name given? Contact info? Use easywhois.com to find out real owner Look at the Links - are they biased? Do all of the forward links go back to the same place???? Don’t fall for it!

Dissecting URLS aka “truncating” – click at the end of the web address and delete all of the characters up to the previous left slash. Each time you delete to the previous slash, you move up a level in the organization of the site until you get to the domain name which is generally the home page of the site. Extensions show the type of establishment that owns the domain Safe bets are.edu,.gov, or.k12 and.sch or.ac used in other countries. Go to “list of internet top-level domains” Wikipedia article to see common extensions and country codes Watch out for.com,.org, and.net because anyone can buy them Research the history of a site by going to and using The Wayback Machinewww.archive.org Don’t be fooled by expensive-looking, flashy, professionally-designed websites

Can you do it? Let's say you want to use "genetics" as a broad search term.

And the first site that pops up is (click on link) Using the REAL method, you should see that: 1. READ:.com not a good start! 2. EXAMINE: don’t see any dates, see “reproductive” tab and if you keep scrolling….pregnant men??? really? 3. AUTHOR: no address, no real names, just testimonials, no board of directors, etc., when look up on easywhois.com see one doctor’s name with a P.O. Box, no phone numbers and a sketchy address, 4. LINKS: worse of all, all links go back to same place, no legitimate outside links because….eventually you will find that it is a “dummy” site that was created by graphic artist! But it looks so convincing! VERDICT? FAILED!

So you go to the second site from the result list (click on it) Using the REAL method, they should see that: 1. READ: BBC is a credible news source,.co is a company,.uk means it’s United Kingdom, 2. EXAMINE: story is about blondes being “gone” in 200 years but there are no statisticss, figures, medical evidence, and it’s an old article from AUTHOR: quotes one doctor but the article has no author 4. LINKS: links are legitimate, just too brief to use as a credible source! VERDICT? Legitimate BUT not a very good source

And so you keep on moving down the line (click on it) Using the REAL method, they should see that: 1. READ:.gov looks legitimate 2. EXAMINE: current date, several government links, has nontechnology 101 link, when you look them up on easywhois.com actually find that 3. AUTHOR: US governmental agency! 4. LINKS: incredible amount of legitimate links VERDICT? It’s a GO! Legitimate!

Need more practice? Truncate these three sites that could come up with a "global warming" search:

Works Cited ​ Amdac. Online image. “Easy button.” Flikr. Web. 16 January Online image. “Dice.” Flikr. Web. 16 January Evilerin. Online image. “Girl.” Flikr. Web. 16 January Online image. “Google eye.” Flikr. Web. 16 January Chavezonico. Online image. “Hoody.” Flikr. Web. 16 January Data-op. Online image. “Fist.” Flikr. Web. 16 January November, Alan. Empowering Students with Technology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Print. WANT TO SEE MORE HOAX WEBSITES? The 21 st Century Information Fluency Project - Vetted Resources: Hoax and Parody Sites