So, dto review....when doing academic research:

I. Use trusted sources

II. Know & watch your url

III. Evaluate sources carefully.  Use your good judgement.

 

So how does this work?

Keep our guidelines in mind when you do web searches!   Use your knowledge of urls to sift through search results quickly, and discard less trustworthy sources.

Let's do a quick search of web sources on civil rights pioneer Fred Korematsu.....below is what you see when you do a googlesearch for Fred Korematsu.  Which of these sources are worth exploring further?

 

Oh by the way, I highly recommend google as the cleanest search engine out there....they do the best job at filtering out the lame sites... but using these techniques, you should be able to work with any search engine.

 

Okay, so first is the infamous wikipedia.  It might give you a brief overview of your subject, but it's really not the place you want to start.   Again, encyclopedias are for grade school, not college work....

myhero.com?  Skip the .com!  Besides, it sounds corny anyway

infoplease.com?  Skip the .com!  Please!

americanprogress.org?  Definitely possible...mark this one for review

 

imdiversity.com?  Nope.

 

pbs.org?  Hell yeah.  Here's a solid federally-funded nonprofit organization (Public Broadcasting Service) that may have valuable information and sources.  I would probably even start here.

medal of freedom.com?  Skip it.

democrats.org?  skip it for now - as a political advocacy group, they're not exactly impartial.  But you might be able to scavenge something later.....

trackedinamerica.org - hmm, interesting, mark this for review.

jenner.com? nope.

d

 

law.uh.edu?  what do we know about this site?  An .edu is a definite yes, but what else can we tell from the URL?

Remember the as.sjsu.edu example?  This is the law school at the University of Houston.  So yes, this is an excellent resource.....

And as for the second, nytimes.com - of course, this is a good source.  Newspapers are a strong exception to the no-dot-com rule.

 

 

See how that works?  We've narrowed our list from 13 sites down to five and a maybe. 

Okay, that's pretty much it.  Ready for your worksheet?

 

Yup, I'm ready...