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Evaluating
Information from Web Pages
How
do you know information from a Web page is true, accurate
and of reasonable quality? Although publishers, editorial
boards or reviewers usually (although, not always) decide
whether books or magazine or newspaper articles are accurate
and of decent enough quality to be published, anyone can
create a Web page with no screening at all. You should
always critically evaluate any information you receive, but
it is especially important to evaluate information from the
Internet. The questions below should be asked when
evaluating any web page. They can provide some useful
guidelines and criteria to help you evaluate the quality and
reliability of web pages.
Who
is the author or institution?
- If
an individual has written the page, is biographical
information about the author available? Such information
could include: educational and other credentials,
occupational position, institutional affiliation and
address. Try doing a search on a web search engine to see
if the author's name comes up in other web
pages.
- If
an institution has authored the page, is information
available about that institution, including its purpose,
history and street address? Try doing a search on a web
search engine to see if the institution's name comes up
in other web pages.
- What
clues does the URL (Internet address) provide about the
page? Read: "Internet
Basics 101 - What is a URL"
(http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/start/url.shtml)
How
current is the information?
- Is
there a date on the page that indicates when the page was
created and/or updated?
- If
no date is listed on the page, select
"Document Info" from the
Netscape "View" pull-down
menu. This will show the date and time the page was
last updated.
- Is
there some information that is clearly out of
date?
Who
is the audience?
- Is
the page intended for the general public, or is it meant
for specific groups, such as scholars, members of an
organization, children, etc.
Is
the content accurate and objective?
- Are
there political, ideological, cultural religious or
institutional biases?
- Is
the content intended to be a brief overview of the
information or an in-depth analysis?
- If
the information is opinion, is this clearly
stated?
- Are
facts or assertions documented with credible
documentation?
What
is the purpose of the information?
For further information on evaluating web pages, see
"Evaluating
Information on the
Internet"
by by D. Scott Brandt, Purdue University Libraries
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