Searching
and Researching
on
the Internet and the
World Wide Web
For
Students, Teachers, Librarians, and Folks
Who Want to Stay in the Know
Evaluating Information Found on the World Wide Web
Critical
thinking skills have always been important to the process of searching
for and using information from media such as books, journals, radio
broadcasts, television reports, and so forth. With the advent of the
Internet and the World Wide Web, these skills have become even more
crucial.
Traditional books and journal articles need to pass some kind of
editorial scrutiny before being published. Web pages, however, can
appear without a single person ever reading them through to check for
accuracy.
Libraries have collection development policies that govern what
material they will and will not buy; the Internet and the Web, having
no such policies, collect anything.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t information of high quality on the
Internet. There are thousands of high-caliber Web sites and
well-regarded databases. It is your responsibility to decide whether a
page or site is worth selecting and then determine, using
well-established guidelines, whether the information is worth using in
your research paper, project, or presentation.
We use the information found on the Web for a variety of purposes.
Sometimes we use it for entertainment, recreation, or casual
conversation. When we use it for research, to bolster a belief, or to
choose a particular course of action, we have to be sure the
information is reliable and authoritative. That puts us in the position
of having to verify the information and make judgments about its
appropriateness. Reliable information is one of the most important
things in life. In order to make decisions and understand our world, we
need the most truthful information that we can find.
The nature of the Internet and the World Wide Web makes it easy for
almost anyone to create and disperse information. People also have the
freedom to design their pages to advertise products or disseminate
propaganda unnoticeable within the context of a research report. To
think critically about information and its sources means being able to
separate fact from opinion. We have to be able to verify information
and know its source, we have to determine whether the facts are
current, and we need to know why someone offered the information at
all. In some situations, we don’t have to do all the work ourselves.
Some librarians and other information specialists have established
directories on the Web in which the listed sources have been reviewed
and evaluated.
Still, when you deal with any information you find on the Web or in a
library, it is up to you to be skeptical about it and to assess whether
it’s appropriate for your purposes. For example, if you want
information before buying a new computer, then product announcements
from manufacturers will give you some data, but the announcements will
probably not be the right source for impartial brand comparisons. If
you’re researching techniques for advertising electronic consumer
products, then the advertisements might be good resource material; if
you are writing about the physics involved in producing sound on a
MacBook, however, these ads may not be authoritative sources.
Once you find some information, regardless of whether the resource is a
book, journal article, Web page, or data from a commercial database, a
librarian can help you evaluate its usefulness and quality. Librarians,
particularly reference librarians, are trained professionals who have
lots of experience with evaluating resources. They can usually tell you
within seconds if information is relevant, authoritative, and
appropriate for your research needs.
Summary
The World Wide Web gives us access to a great variety of information on
many different topics. When we want to use the resources we find on the
Web for information or research purposes, we need to exercise some care
to be sure it’s authentic, reliable, and authoritative. We need to be
equally cautious when we use other sources.
Print sources that are available to us through a research or academic
library have often been put through a screening process by professional
librarians. There are several directories that contain evaluated
resources on the Web, and it’s useful to consult some of these
libraries when doing research. Information in many directories tends to
be evaluated before it’s listed. Plus, by consulting these directories,
we can also observe how librarians and other information specialists
evaluate resources.
It pays to be skeptical or critical of information we want to use. It’s
relatively easy to publish information on the Web, and it can be
presented in such a way as to hide its intent or purpose. Generally, as
we evaluate documents, we also learn more about the topic we’re
considering. Assessing resources makes us more confident of the
information and helps us become better versed in the topic.
We need to use some general guidelines or criteria when evaluating
information or resources. In this vein, we should ask the following
questions about whatever information we find:
Who is the author or institution?
How current is the information?
Who is the audience?
Is the content accurate and objective?
What is the purpose of the information?
Various strategies will help us find answers to the questions. Here are some of those tips:
Look for the name of the author or institution at the top or bottom of a Web page.
Go to the home page for the site hosting the information to find
out about the organization. To find further information about the
institution or author, use a search engine to see what related
information is available on the Web.
Use Google Groups to search archives of discussion group
articles. This way, you can find other information about the author or
institution. You can also find out if the author has posted anything to
a group.
Check the top and bottom of a Web page for the date on which the information was last modified or updated.
There are a number of Web resources that can help us evaluate
information and that discuss issues related to assessing documents, and
we have included many of the best in this chapter.
