Selecting Web sources
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Anyone can publish on the Web, and unreliable sites often masquerade as legitimate sources of information. And sometimes the number of results from a search can be overwhelming. Learn how to narrow a search. And then be aware that the clues listed here for scanning and previewing are by no means foolproof.
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?)
Look for keywords that are associated with a Web site in the results. Sometimes those keywords can suggest other searches that might generate additional relevant sites.
Previewing promising Web sites
- 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 Web site. Is the site trying to sell a product? Promote an idea? Inform the public? Is the purpose consistent with your research?
- If the Web site 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?
Checking URLs for clues about sponsorship
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Evaluating sources found on the Web
Related topics:
Selecting articles in databases