III. Evaluate your sources.
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What kinds of things in a website make it seem more trustworthy to you?
The hard part is that some students have also suggested that having advertising makes a site seem more trustworthy, as in legitimate! And sometimes plain language is deceptive...advertisers can be very tricky! Which leaves the third option - sources. Like a library book, good sources are usually a sign of good research - or at least, openness to acknowledging possible bias, which is also a good sign. We'll come back to this in a minute....
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When it comes to websites, always remember that only two suffixes are controlled - .edu and .gov. All of the other suffixes can be anyone - the crazy man in the attic, or the bored nine-year-old at her computer. You really don't want to base an academic research paper on them!So the first thing you want to look for at any site is the About Us statement. The "About Us" has pretty much become a web standard as a way of identifying who is actually behind a website's content and production. The "About Us" link is most often located at the far top right, or far bottom left of most navigation bars. When you find the "About Us", you want to look for at least three things:
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For example:Here's an easy one: the Kaiser Family Foundation. They make their "About Us" link very clear at the top right on the page. Click on the graphic below to go to the actual page (it will open in a new window). Explore the link and look for information about their foundation, and about their leadership (Board of Trustees). Did you see a lot of academic degrees? That means it is fine for academic research. If you look at the About Our Foundation link, you'll see that their foundation is "a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S. ... a non-partisan source of facts, information, and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the public" So we already know several things about them:
So they seem a pretty solid academic source, no? |
Here's another one:What does the "About" on this .org site suggest? What is their mission statement? Click on the image to open it in a new window.
Is this one more or less reliable? Why? |
This one actually breaks my heart, because it's got some great information. But the "About Us" says this is a former discussion list, and lists a bunch of names without sources or credentials....we don't know if this is done by a retired librarian who just wants to help, or by that bored nine-year-old girl. So definitely not a good academic resource.However, even if it's not something you can use as a source, you might be able to scavenge something of use from the page. This page, in particular, has some good bibliographies of books on women's issues - so go ahead and look up those books, and then just use those books as your academic sources. Make sense? Even if it a site doesn't meet academic standards, you can sometimes scavenge an idea or reference from it. That's the case for wikipedia, by the way, which is a neat online encyclopedia. Because wikipedia has no controls or academic peer review, you cannot use it as an academic source. (It's also an encyclopedia, which you don't use for research unless you're in grade school). Sometimes though, it has good ideas for other academic sources though, that you can follow up.
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Okay, a few last things. We've already established that when evaluating a site, always look for:
-- Mission statement -- Staff or leadership
But you should also:
And finally, don't forget to scavenge ... it might be a source or bibliography or reference to another more reliable website.
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