1. Why Evaluate? Anyone can publish anything on the Web… It is your job, as a researcher, to look for quality

2. Think of the BIG Questions
Who: CREDIBILITY / AUTHORITY
What: TYPE OF MATERIAL
Why: CONTENT AND ACCURACY
How: RELEVANCE AND VALUE

3. WHO: CREDIBILITY / AUTHORITY
Who is the author? What are his or her credentials? Education? Experience? Affiliation?
Does the author’s experience really qualify him or her as an expert?
Does he or she offer first-hand credibility? (For instance, a Vietnam veteran or a witness to Woodstock?)
Who actually published this page?
Is this a personal page or is it part of the site belonging to a major institution? (Clues pointing to a personal page: ~, %, users, members)
You discover an author has a Ph.D. Do you need to investigate any further? What if her degree is in physics and the site she wrote is on Shakespeare?
Is everything on Geocities bad? Would your teacher question you citing a source that resided on a free server?

4. No Author Information? Words and phrases to look for:
About us, Who Am I, FAQ’s, For More, Company Information, Profiles, Our Staff, Home
the author
If you have no information other than an link, write a polite asking for more information.
Clues often appear on the top or bottom of a page, or in menu bars and frames. These sections often contain authorship clues!

5. More credibility clues (What do others think?)
Do a link check
In Google type
link:site address
Your results will show which other sites have chosen to link to this page. If respectable institutions have linked to a site, that provides a clue about the site’s credibility.
Does the site appear in major subject directories like Librarian’s Index to the Internet (ipl.org)?

6. Truncate the URL
Delete characters in the address line up to the next slash mark to see if a main page offers more information about who is responsible for publishing the page you are interested in.
Go from:

7. Still more credibility clues
If you have an author’s name but no further information about credentials,
Search the name in quotation marks in a search engine or online database
Include words like profile, resume, or C.V. (curriculum vitae—an academic resume) to narrow your search
Include the name of a college or association you can connect with the person

8. No author?
If you cannot find the name of the author, you must work even harder to prove the source’s credibility by closely examining the other three areas: what, why, and how.

9. WHAT: SOURCE What kind of site is it?
Consider this: What makes the information obtained more reliable than another type of source?
What makes the site more credible than another?
Spelling and grammatical errors are important clues that a site ought to be avoided as a source. Be on the lookout for information that just doesn’t “feel right.”

10. WHY : CONTENT Is the content accurate?
Is the content different from other sources that you have come across?
Did the author document his or her sources? use reliable, credible sources?
Are those sources real? Can you verify them?
Research is not a contest. It doesn’t matter how many sources you collect. What does matter is their quality and their relevance!

11. HOW : VALUE/RELEVANCE How will you use it?
How valuable is it to your research? Can you write your paper without this information?
How will it help you support your thesis?

12. What can you learn from a URL?
You can use the end, or suffix of a domain name to help you judge the validity of the information and the potential bias of a web site.
This strategy is only a guideline. People can easily purchase domains that do not reflect their actual purpose.

13. URLs as clues to content
.com=commercial sites (vary in their credibility)
.gov=U.S. government site
.org=organization, often non-profit. Some have strong bias and hidden agendas
.edu=school or university site (is it K-12? By a student? By a scholar?)
.mil=U.S. military site
.net=networked service provider, Internet administrative site
~=personal site

14. What do their URLs reveal about these sites?

15. Practice Determining Credibility

16. Remember, the free Web is not your only choice.
Did you use print sources?
Did you search subscription databases?
Did you check with your teacher or librarian for advice?

17. Why does it even matter?
This assignment is about more than just writing another paper.
It is about
Forming an opinion and defending it with credible sources
Recognizing credible and reliable sources
Pulling all of the pieces together into a cohesive unit
Using the internet to your advantage