The World Wide Web offers students, teachers and researchers the opportunity
to find information and data from all over the world. The Web is easy to
use, both for finding information and for publishing it electronically.
Because so much information is available, and because that information
can appear to be fairly ìanonymousî, it is necessary to develop
skills to evaluate what you find. When you use a research or academic library,
the books, journals and other resources have already been evaluated by
scholars, publishers and librarians. Every resource you find has been evaluated
in one way or another before you ever see it. When you are using the World
Wide Web, none of this applies. There are no filters. Because anyone can
write a Web page, documents of the widest range of quality, written by
authors of the widest range of authority, are available on an ìeven
playing fieldî. Excellent resources reside along side the most dubious.
The Internet epitomizes the concept of Caveat lector: Let the reader
beware. This document discusses the criteria by which scholars in most
fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can
be used to assess information found on the Internet.
Before you use or copy any type of information...
Information is intellectual property, and intellectual property is protected
by the law. Do you know and understand the meaning of copyright? Go to
Information on Copyright and Intellectual Property for explanations of
fair use (educational and scholarly use of copyrighted information), safe
use of Web-based information, protecting your rights and those of authors
you quote in your dissertation, and other related questions.
Basic criteria for evaluating all forms of information, and how they apply
to the Internet:
| Authorship
| Publishing
body | Point
of view or bias | Referral
to other sources | Verifiability
| Currency
|
Other helpful documents:
| Understanding
and Decoding URLs | | "How
to Search the Web" | Finding
Quality on the Net | How
to cite electronic information. |
There are certain criteria that should be applied when evaluating all
forms of information, be it in print, on film, or electronic. These criteria
include the following...
Authorship
is perhaps the major criterion used in evaluating information. Who wrote
this? When we look for information with some type of critical value, we
want to know the basis of the authority with which the author speaks. Here
are some possible filters:
In your own field of study, the author is a well-known and well-regarded
name you recognize.
When you find an author you do not recognize:
the author is mentioned in a positive fashion by another author or another
person you trust as an authority;
you found or linked to the authorís Web/Internet document from another
document you trust;
the Web/Internet document you are reading gives biographical information,
including the author's position, institutional affiliation and address;
biographical information is available by linking to another document; this
enables you to judge whether the authorís credentials allow him/her
to speak with authority on a given topic;
if none of the above, there is an address and telephone number as well
as an e-mail address for the author in order to request further information
on his or her work and professional background. An e- mail address alone
gives you no more information than you already have.
The
publishing body also helps evaluate any kind of document you
may be reading. In the print universe, this generally means that the author's
manuscript has undergone screening in order to verify that it meets the
standards or aims of the organization that serves as publisher. This may
include peer review. On the Internet, ask the following questions to assess
the role and authority of the ìpublisherî, which in this case
means the server (computer) where the document lives:
Is the name of any organization given on the document you are reading?
Are there headers, footers, or a distinctive watermark that show the document
to be part of an official academic or scholarly Web site? Can you contact
the site Webmaster from this document?
If not, can you link to a page where such information is listed? Can you
tell that itís on the same server and in the same directory (by
looking at the URL)?
Is this organization recognized in the field in which you are studying?
Is this organization suitable to address the topic at hand?
Can you ascertain the relationship of the author and the publisher/server?
Was the document that you are viewing prepared as part of the authorís
professional duties (and, by extension, within his/her area of expertise)?
Or is the relationship of a casual or for-fee nature, telling you nothing
about the authorís credentials within an institution?
Can you verify the identity of the server where the document resides? Internet
programs such dnslookup and whois will be of help.
Does this Web page actually reside in an individualís personal Internet
account, rather than being part of an official Web site? This type of information
resource should be approached with the greatest caution. Hints on identifying
personal pages are available in Understanding
and Decoding URLs.
Point
of view or bias reminds us that information is rarely neutral.
Because data is used in selective ways to form information, it generally
represents a point of view. Every writer wants to prove his point, and
will use the data and information that assists him in doing so. When evaluating
information found on the Internet, it is important to examine who
is providing the "information" you are viewing, and what might be their
point
of view or bias. The popularity of the Internet makes it the
perfect venue for commercial and sociopolitical publishing. These areas
in particular are open to highly "interpretative" uses of data.
Steps for evaluating point of view are based on authorship or
affiliation:
-
First, note the URL of the document. Does this document reside on the Web
server of an organization that has a clear stake in the issue at hand?
-
If you are looking at a corporate Web site, assume that the information
on the corporation will present it in the most positive light.
-
If you are looking at products produced and sold by that corporation, remember:
you are looking at an advertisement.
-
If you are reading about a political figure at the Web site of another
political party, you are reading the opposition.
-
Does this document reside on the Web server of an organization that has
a political or philosophical agenda?
-
If you are looking for scientific information on human genetics, would
you trust a political organization to provide it?
-
Never assume that extremist points of view are always easy to detect.
Some sites promoting these views may look educational. To learn more,
read "Rising
Tide: Sites Born of Hate",
New York Times, March 18, 1999. (This
link will take you to the online edition of the Times; you must
register, free of charge, to view the article).
Many areas of research and inquiry deal with controversial questions, and
often the more controversial an issue is, the more interesting it is. When
looking for information, it is always critical to remember that
everyone has an opinion. Because the structure of the Internet allows for
easy self publication, the variety of points of view and bias will be the
widest possible.
Referral
to and/or knowledge of the literature refers to the context
in which the author situates his or her work. This reveals what the author
knows about his or her discipline and its practices. This allows you to
evaluate the author's scholarship or knowledge of trends in the area under
discussion. The following criteria serve as a filter for all formats of
information:
The document includes a bibliography.
The author alludes to or displays knowledge of related sources, with proper
attribution.
The author displays knowledge of theories, schools of thought, or techniques
usually considered appropriate in the treatment of his or her subject.
If the author is using a new theory or technique as a basis for research,
he or she discusses the value and/or limitations of this new approach.
If the author's treatment of the subject is controversial, he or she knows
and acknowledges this.
Accuracy
or verifiability of details is an important part of the evaluation
process, especially when you are reading the work of an unfamiliar author
presented by an unfamiliar organization, or presented in a non-traditional
way. Criteria for evaluating accuracy include:
For a research document, the data that was gathered and an explanation
of the research method(s) used to gather and interpret it are included.
The methodology outlined in the document is appropriate to the topic and
allows the study to be duplicated for purposes of verification.
The document relies on other sources that are listed in a bibliography
or includes links to the documents themselves.
The document names individuals and/or sources that provided non- published
data used in the preparation of the study.
The background information that was used can be verified for accuracy.
Currency
refers to the timeliness of information. In printed documents, the date
of publication is the first indicator of currency. For some types of information,
currency is not an issue: authorship or place in the historical record
is more important (e.g., T. S. Eliot's essays on tradition in literature).
For many other types of data, however, currency is extremely important,
as is the regularity with which the data is updated. Apply the following
criteria to ascertain currency:
The document includes the date(s) at which the information was gathered
(e.g., US Census data).
The document refers to clearly dated information (e.g., ìBased on
1990 US Census data.î).
Where there is a need to add data or update it on a constant basis, the
document includes information on the regularity of updates.
The document includes a publication date or a ìlast updatedî
date.
The document includes a date of copyright.
If no date is given in an electronic document, you can view the directory
in which it resides and read the date of latest modification.
If you found information using one of the search engines available
on the Internet, such as AltaVista or InfoSeek, a directory of
the Internet such as Yahoo, or any of the services that rate World Wide
Web pages, you need to know:
How the search engine decides the order in which it returns information
requested. Some Internet search engines "sell" top space to advertisers
who pay them to do so. Read "Caveat
emptor on the Web: Ad and editorial lines blur", New York Times,
February 26, 1999. (You may need to register with the Times in order to
read this article).
That Internet search engines aren't like the databases found in libraries.
Read Information Retrieval and the Internet
to learn how they differ.
How that search engine looks for information, and how often their information
is updated. An excellent Web document explaining this process was written
by Terry A. Gray at Palomar College. Read "How
to Search the Web".
How that rating service evaluates Web pages. Another excellent resource
that includes information on this topic is Finding
Quality on the Net, by Hope Tillman of Babson College.
All information, whether in print or by byte, needs
to be evaluated by readers for authority, appropriateness, and other personal
criteria for value. If you find information that is ìtoo good
to be trueî, it probably is. Never use information that you cannot
verify. Establishing and learning criteria to filter information
you find on the Internet is a good beginning for becoming a critical consumer
of information in all forms. ìCast a cold eyeî (as Yeats wrote)
on everything you read. Question it. Look for other sources that can authenticate
or corroborate what you find. Learn to be skeptical and then learn to trust
your instincts.
