PRACTICAL TIPS FOR WEB SITE EVALUATION Look for the author's name and/or affiliation at the bottom of the page. Follow any links labelled "About the Author" or "Contact Us", or click on the author's name if it is highlighted as a hot link. If the sponsoring organization is not named or described on the site, look at the address. The following feature (the domain name) of a web site address indicates what type of institution is sponsoring the site: .com = commercial .edu = educational institution (usually a college or university) .gov = government agency .org = organization or association .net = network services provider .mil = U.S. military Two letter endings usually refer to specific countries. For example: .uk = United Kingdom .au = Australia .ca = Canada .de = Germany An address containing a tilde, "~" (ex: www.uvm.edu/~ncrane/estyles/apa.html) usually means the site is the personal home page of an individual. At an .edu site, a page like this could belong to a student or a faculty member, so one should investigate further. Some commercial sites, such as GeoCities and AngelFire, offer free web pages where anyone can post anything, so be aware. If you cannot find any information about the sponsoring organization or author on an individual web page, try shortening the web site address (or URL) to dig deeper into the site. For example, if no sponsoring institution or author information was found at the following URL:   http://web.syr.edu/~srking/censorship/front.html Try opening the URL minus the "front.html" portion of the address:   http://web.syr.edu/~srking/censorship/ If you still do not find the information you need, try removing the next portion of the address (i.e. "censorship/"). You can continue this until you reach the stem address (e.g. "web.syr.edu"). In your travels around the site, look for links labeled "About Us", "Our Mission", "FAQ" (frequently asked questions), or "Home" in order to gain some background information about the organization, its goals, and potential biases. Take into account the nature of the organization sponsoring the web site when assessing the information. A commercial site naturally has a strong financial interest in steering you toward its products and away from competitors, just as an advocacy group will likely be interested in steering your opinion toward its own position at the expense of opposing views. This doesn't mean the information presented on such sites is hopelessly tainted; it just means that you should consider the source and perhaps find supporting resources. Be wary of sites that claim objectivity unless they can back it up. Look for a some indication of where the information on the site is coming from, such as a bibliography or list of references. Do not trust facts that are not documented unless you are absolutely certain that they are coming from a true authority (e.g. statistics from the Census Bureau's web site can be reasonably trusted without references). It is important to know the date that information on the Internet was produced--often it is not nearly as current as one would expect. If no date can be found, and you are using Netscape, try going to the "View" pull-down menu and choosing "Page Info". This may at least give you the date that a page was last modified, although the content may be significantly older. Pay attention to details like style, spelling, grammar, and the types of links to related sites. Any site that is stylistically sloppy or disorganized, contains spelling or grammar errors, or features a large number of dead or poor quality links reveals a lack of attention on the part of the author that should call into question any information found there. It can be difficult sometimes to tell when you have moved from one site to another, so pay continuous attention to the URL for any changes to the institutional identifier (e.g. the "microsoft" portion of www.microsoft.com). When you move to a new site, you must evaluate it independently of the site that sent you there. The fact that two sites share a link does not mean they are associated in any way, nor does it mean that they are of comparable quality or reliability. Frames may also make it difficult to determine when you have moved from one site to another. When you follow a link away from a site that uses frames, sometimes part of the old site remains onscreen in one frame while the new site opens up in another frame. Even though the two sites may appear side by side on your screen, they are not necessarily related or comparable in quality. They must be evaluated independently of one another. When assessing information found on the Internet, continually ask yourself whether the same information can be found in a more authoritative or complete form elsewhere. Don't depend on the Internet for information because it seems convenient--often it may take hours to find what you could have gotten from a reference book in a few minutes! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Evaluating Internet Resources http://library.albany.edu/internet/evaluate.html Evaluating Internet Research http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm ICYouSee: T is for Thinking http://www.ithaca.edu/library/Training/hott.html net.TUTOR: Evaluation of Web Sites http://gateway.lib.ohio-state.edu/tutor/open/les1/ Compiled by Charles Dolan Technical Services Librarian Middlesex County College Library (732) 906-4254 mailto:charles_dolan@middlesexcc.edu