Finding and Evaluating Websites

Finding websites is easy. Figuring out whether not they are going to be useful to your assignment is difficult. The problem is that the internet is too vast and unreliable. The World Wide Web has a lot of information available to students. That creates the problem of information overload. Unreliability comes from the fact that anyone can put up a website. It just takes a little time and knowledge. When looking at a web page as a possible research resource always think about the three W's.

• Who - made the web resource? Is it a professor or someone looking to pull a practical joke?
• What - are they saying? Is it propaganda? Are they conveying scientific information? Is there a bibliography or references?
• Why - is the organization or individual who made the website putting this information on the web? Are they trying to convince you to buy their product? Are they presenting new information on a topic?

So, be careful when you use information from the internet. In general if your source is coming from an .edu (education website, i.e. Universities and Colleges) or a .gov (government website, i.e. Department of State or Department of Education) it should be reliable information.