Web site evaluation

1. Web site evaluation

2. Library vs. Internet • See handout

3. How to evaluate web sites • Author (individual or group) • Publisher • Date (is it important to your topic?) • Cited sources • Common Sense (bias, logical, facts vs. opinions, errors and dead links)

4. URLs • .com – usually a commercial site • .net, .org – sometimes a non-profit, but anyone can get a domain ending in either of these • .edu – affiliated with an educational institution like a school or library, but it can be a professor or a student, so beware • .gov, .mil – government/military site. Usually credible, great source of statistics and other information, though some topics may involve a bias, such as No Child Left Behind or Patriot Act • None of these are fool-proof

5. Crap detection • "Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him." - Ernest Hemingway, 1954

6. Now you try: • Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus • Martinlutherking.org • Martin Luther King Jr. • CNN.com • The Onion • Muggle • Mold Removal

7. Let’s try one more together…