ENG 102 - English Comp 2 (Jongbloed)

Tips for finding reliable Web sites:

• Consider which organization(s) would be interested in researching and publishing information on your topic. For example, if your topic is 'affordable healthcare', a government agency or insurance association might be interested in tracking the scope of the problem. Limit your Google search by site:gov or site:org (ex: healthcare site:gov). Site:edu is another great limiter. Other stakeholders for your topic may include consumer advocates, professionals, policy makers, and think tank organizations. If you can't find a group interested in your topic, read a few journal articles for ideas.

• Look at the bibliographies (references) included within the text and at the end of the scholarly articles you find during the course of your research. What organizations are mentioned? What additional sources of info can you find?

Not all Web sites are reliable sources of information. Anyone with a computer can put up a Web page. For doing academic work, students must carefully evaluate web sources. Use the following information as a tool for evaluating your sites. Most sites won't have all of the following qualities, but the ones you use for your research should contain answers to at least some of the following questions:

Who wrote the information?

• does the article indicate who wrote it?
• are the credentials of the author indicated?

Is there an "about us" or "mission statement" located on the main page?

• is it easy to find?
• does it match the content of the Web site?
• is the sponsor of the site interested in making money or an organization wanting to win you over to a point of view?

Is the site current?

• does the site state when it was copyrighted or written?
• does it say when it was last updated?
• does each article have a date when it was written?

Who funds the site?

• is it easy to find that information?
• is there contact information available?

What type of site is it?

• look at the domains, i.e. .gov, .edu, .com, .org.
• make .edu and .gov your first choice when possible

*thanks for contributions made to this checklist by Kathleen Packard.

Wikipedia is a popular Internet destination for many users. However, many teachers, professors, librarians and other education professionals view Wikipedia as a bad source of information. Why?

• Authorship of Wikipedia pages is anonymous
  • This means the qualifications of the author are unknown

• A Wikipedia entry can be edited by anyone at any time
  • This means entries may contain incorrect information
  • Persons with an agenda or grudge can hijack or vandalize a Wikipedia entry
  • Information you found in an entry may not be there when you go back the next time or ever again
• Many Wikipedia entries do not include proof of their assertions
  • Meaning you can not verify the accuracy of the information 

It is a great idea to  start your search with the kind of broad, background information which can be found in an encyclopedia. However, the library has access to more reliable, online encyclopedias which you can use instead of Wikipedia (Credo Reference, Funk and Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia.)

One way to make scholarly use of Wikipedia is to go to the citations listed at the bottom of the page. If you are able to access those information sources directly, you will be less likely to run into the problems listed above.