Selecting web sources

Scanning search results for potential usefulness

• Title, keywords, and lead-in text (How relevant?)
• A date (How current?)
• An indication of the site’s sponsor or purpose (How reliable?)
• The URL, especially the domain name extension: .com, .edu, .gov, .org (How relevant? How reliable?)

Previewing promising websites

• Check to see if the sponsor is a reputable organization, a government agency, or a university. Is the group likely to look at only one side of a debatable issue?
• If you have landed on an internal page of a site and no author or sponsor is evident, try navigating to the home page, either through a link or by truncating the URL.
• Try to determine the purpose of the website. Is the site trying to sell a product? Promote an idea? Inform the public? Is the purpose consistent with your research?
• If the website includes statistical data (tables, graphs, charts), can you tell how and by whom the statistics were compiled? Is research cited?
• Find out when the site was created or last updated. Is it current enough for your purposes?