Friday, March 13, 2009

Evaluating a Web Site

I think a web site is one of the easiest types of resources to evaluate. You can usually tell right off the bat if the web site is going to be accurate, objective, current and well covered. From the home page, you can often tell if the web site is going to hold water. If it is a good source, it is most likely going to have a link or picture towards the bottom of the page of the company or center that copywrited or is in charge of the site. And from there you can usually find out if the site has proper authority behind it and is a good source to use. If you don't see any of these things on the page, chances are the site isn't going to be a good source to use for a paper or whatever you may be researching for.
Also, if the web site is a good one, there are going to be many links and other things to click on so you can explore the site, or a sister one, that is going to lead you to all the information your going to need for your research.
I think evaluating a web site is much easier than evaluating any other type of source, because usually the criteria you are looking for in a valid source are right there in front of you.

1 comment:

  1. I have to agree with you, in saying that a website would probably be the easiest source to evaluate. I think that having links to sister websites is a great way to be able to tell if a website is reliable or not, because they are not only presenting their own data to you, but giving you links to other websites, in the event that the current website doesn't have any information. Great ideal.

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