Searching for information on the Web, we always come across much information and that is why we must evaluate all the resources found by search engines. To distinguish between reliable sources and unreliable ones I’ve always used the following criteria:
1. I read the annotations below the websites provided by the search engine to see if the content of the source corresponds to what I’m searching for.
2. I usually ask myself who is the author of the source because if he is influential or famous I consider him and his work more trustworthy.
3. I look at the first date of publishing and at other possible reviews.
4. I look at the layout of the webpage to check if the information is well structured and to see if other links are provided.
5. I quickly browse the entire page to get an idea of its contents.
As far as books are concerned, I feel more confident of the contents because they are published and carefully examined. To find out the information I’m interested in I’ve often used the following criteria:
• I search for information about the author if I don’t know him and I check the publishing date.
• I browse the table of contents to get a general idea of the book and see if it can satisfy my informative needs.
• I look at the bibliography to see if the author’s quotations are reliable.
I usually prefer books if I need to find general and theoretical information and websites to search for more specific and precise sources.
Reading the tips provided by the University of Essex, Purdue’s Online Writing Lab and San Diego State University, I noticed some good suggestions to evaluate sources of information. For instance, the tips I consider very useful are:
• the use of specialized source engines like ‘Google scholar’, which are said to be very precise (University of Essex).
• To check the domain of the url to see if the webpage is hosted on an educational, goverment, organization or commercial site (University of Essex).
• To check if there is a bibliography (University of Essex).
• To check if the author is listed with adresses (San Diego State University).
• To check if the provided information is authentic, unique or copied and see who is the intended audience of the source (San Diego State University).
However, I think that it is not necessary to check if the site is part of a permanent organization, do you agree?
Let me know what criteria you follow to evaluate sources and your reflections on the suggestions provided by the three websites.
See you soon,
Elisa
1. I read the annotations below the websites provided by the search engine to see if the content of the source corresponds to what I’m searching for.
2. I usually ask myself who is the author of the source because if he is influential or famous I consider him and his work more trustworthy.
3. I look at the first date of publishing and at other possible reviews.
4. I look at the layout of the webpage to check if the information is well structured and to see if other links are provided.
5. I quickly browse the entire page to get an idea of its contents.
As far as books are concerned, I feel more confident of the contents because they are published and carefully examined. To find out the information I’m interested in I’ve often used the following criteria:
• I search for information about the author if I don’t know him and I check the publishing date.
• I browse the table of contents to get a general idea of the book and see if it can satisfy my informative needs.
• I look at the bibliography to see if the author’s quotations are reliable.
I usually prefer books if I need to find general and theoretical information and websites to search for more specific and precise sources.
Reading the tips provided by the University of Essex, Purdue’s Online Writing Lab and San Diego State University, I noticed some good suggestions to evaluate sources of information. For instance, the tips I consider very useful are:
• the use of specialized source engines like ‘Google scholar’, which are said to be very precise (University of Essex).
• To check the domain of the url to see if the webpage is hosted on an educational, goverment, organization or commercial site (University of Essex).
• To check if there is a bibliography (University of Essex).
• To check if the author is listed with adresses (San Diego State University).
• To check if the provided information is authentic, unique or copied and see who is the intended audience of the source (San Diego State University).
However, I think that it is not necessary to check if the site is part of a permanent organization, do you agree?
Let me know what criteria you follow to evaluate sources and your reflections on the suggestions provided by the three websites.
See you soon,
Elisa
4 comments:
Hi! Wow, your post is really accurate! I agree with the criteria you use: we have to pay much attention on what we're looking at on the Internet! Do you think that a written text is more trustworthy that a website? Sometimes I do... On the cover of a book there is always the author's name and the publisher! And this is not always true on the net...
Bye,
Anna
Hi Elisa, I think u've always found good stuff on the net...if u follow these criteria u are home and dry! Talkin' about information we can find I think we should keep in mind what we're looking for (in this way we avoid wasting our time)then we have to check the material we found(if we have to rely on it)using the criteria u list. Bye!
Hi Elisa, you have been really clear. Your post could be a sort of vade mecum. I'm not as methodical as you though. Anyway, the trustworthiness of a source is something that is always to be checked out.
One Way or Another.
Good BYES!!!
Niko
Good! You do good searches!
Yu're write when you say that books are carefully examined, if I had to choose between information written in a book and another of a website I would totaly rely on the book!
C U
Bye!
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