Evaluating Information Resources

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Evaluating Information Sources

Make sure you know who is responsible for information found on a web site. You cannot evaluate what you cannot verify. If you have any uncertainty about the author or publisher of the page you are trying to evaluate, then it would be unwise to use that information source. Look for another source.

Questions to ask: when reviewing a web page, can you identify and verify the author's:

• name?
• professional or institutional affiliation?
• position title or academic rank?
• training or experience with the topic?

What to Look For:

• Has an instructor mentioned this author?
• Have you seen the author's name cited in other sources or bibliographies?
• Go to the home page of the hosting web site and search for the author's name using any available internal search engine or directory (works best for academic web sites). This may help establish affiliation.
• Use standard print sources such as Who's Who in America (at E176 .W64 in the Sawyer Library) or other biographical sources (start with Library of Congress Classification "CT" in the Sawyer Library).

Another question for evaluating information sources (page 2 of 2)