Since the World Wide Web is not controlled by any one entity, anyone with a computer and basic knowledge of HTML can publish pages on the Internet. Print information automatically goes through a peer review or editorial process, but information on the Internet does not. This is why it is so important to evaluate the information you retrieve.
The following are some guidelines to help you evaluate information you find on the "free" Internet.
- Author or Authority
- Can you tell who is responsible for the information on the page, such as an individual author, publisher or organization?
- Are the author's affiliation and credentials listed?
- Is the author qualified to write about the subject?
- Can you contact the author of the page?
- The domain name can often provide clues about who is responsible for a site. For example, domain names ending in .edu are educational sites and .gov indicates government sites.
- Accuracy
- Can you verify statistics or other facts on the website?
- Does the information agree with what you found in traditional print sources?
- Are there only minimal errors on the page?
- Are bibliographic references to source information given?
- Has the Web page gone through an editorial or peer-review process?
- Objectivity or Bias
- Is the information on the page presented objectively?
- Are opinions stated as facts?
- Is the entity responsible for the page clearly trying to advance a certain agenda?
- What is the motivation of the organization to provide this information?
- Currency
- Is the information current?
- Can you tell when the information was created or how often it is updated?
- Does the page contain numerous "dead links?"
- Current information is especially important in quickly changing fields, such as medicine and technology. Information on classic literature or history does not need to be as current.
- Level of Coverage
- Who is the intended audience?
- Is the information covered at the appropriate level for your needs?
- Is the material covered in an in-depth manner?
- If you are looking for information on hurricanes, and you find a website on weather that is geared toward grade school students, it is probably not going to be appropriate for a college-level paper.