ENGL 198H: Honors Seminar (Douglass, Spring 2024): Evaluating Websites

Don't trust everything you find on the internet!

Because anyone can post anything online and there is no quality control, it is important to evaluate websites that you intend to use in your research.  On this page are criteria and questions to help you determine if the sources you find are accurate and reliable, but keep in mind that the importance of criteria will depend on your situation or need.

• What is the purpose of the information? To inform? Teach? Persuade? Sell? Entertain?
• Do the authors make their intentions or purpose clear?
• Is the information fact or opinion? Propaganda? How can you tell?
• Does the point of view appear objective and impartial?
• Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional, or personal biases?

•  Where did this information come from?
• Is the information supported by evidence? 
• Has the information been reviewed or refereed?
• Are there spelling, grammar, or other typographical errors?

Where to Look:

• On a web page, look near the top of the page.
• Check the title, the section headings, and the opening paragraphs to see if some person or organization is named as the person(s) responsible for the content of the web pages. Also look near the bottom of the page for this information. (Keep in mind that the webmaster or person who designed the web page is not necessarily the one responsible for the content of the page.)
• You can sometimes learn something about the source of a web page by examining the page's URL.  The domain name portion of the URL often indicates what type of organization and what country a web page comes from.
• If you can't find any information about the author(s) on the page you're looking at, try deleting the last part of the URL for that page in your web browser's location box. Delete from the very end of the URL backwards to the first slash mark ("/"), then press the RETURN or ENTER key on your keyboard. If you still don't see any information about the author(s), back up one more directory or slash mark. Keep going until you come to a page that identifies the author(s) of these pages.
• To find out where the author(s) of books, reference books, or magazines got their information, look at the book jacket blurb and look within your source for a list of references, works cited, or bibliography and footnotes.

• Can you tell when the web page was originally created? When it was last updated?
• Is this a topic on which it's important that you have up-to-date information (science, medicine, news, etc.) or one where it is not as important that information be recent (history, literature, etc.)?

Where to Look:

• Look near the top and the bottom of the web page to see if any publication date, copyright date or "date last modified" is indicated.
• Look for other indications that the page is kept current. Is there a "What's New" section?
• In a book look on the back of the title page. Has the information been revised or updated? For a periodical  look on the cover.
• If statistical data or charts are included, be especially careful to notice what dates are represented there and when the data was collected or published.

• What qualifications does this person or organization have to discuss this topic?
• Does the author have a degree in the discipline? Or is the author an amateur, hobbyist, or merely someone with an opinion to air?
• Is an organization responsible for the pages? If so, is the organization widely recognized as a source of scholarly and reliable information, such as the American Cancer Society for information on cancer-related topics?
• What other information can you find about the author or organization responsible for the content of this web page?

Where to Look:

• On a web page, look near the top and the bottom of the page.
• Is there a link to more information about the person or organization?
• For organizations, there's often a link called "About Us" or something similar that leads to a page explaining the organization's mission, when and how it was founded, and so forth. Read it for clues.
• For a single person or author, there might be information about their educational background, research projects, or other qualifications for writing on the topic. There might be a link to their faculty or professional web pages.
• Look for links to other articles and publications by the person or organization.
• Look for an address or a phone number by which you could contact the author(s) if you wanted to.
• If you can't find any information about the author(s) on the page you're looking at, try deleting the last part of the URL for that page in your web browser's address bar. Keep going until you come to a page that has more information about the person or organization responsible for the pages.
• Remember that a URL that has a tilde (~) in it is almost always someone's personal home page, as opposed to an organization's official page.
• If you can't find any information about the author(s) anywhere on their web pages, try searching for the person or organization's name using an Internet search engine to see if you can find web pages about them elsewhere.
• For print material, check the book jacket for a biographical sketch of the author and check book review sources.
• If you can find no information at all about the author(s), be wary. If you can't verify that the information is authoritative, be cautious about it in a class paper or project.