1) What is the Domain? Domains are the usually three letter extension of an address that occurs at the main root of the URL--before the first right slash. The four most common domains are .com, .gov, .org and .edu. The domains tell you what type of institution the web site is coming from. A .com site is a commercial web site, meaning the institution is a corporate or small business entity. Commercial sites are most often selling products or services (though certain news sites as well as some reliable reference web sites are also companies and therefore also have the .com extension). If your instructor asks you to not use .com sites, be sure to ask whether you can news and reference sites, especially those that are in the Public WWW Sites Selected by Librarians search engine. A .gov site indicates the sponsoring institution is a government body (usually the U.S. government). Some government sites provide in-depth research and statistics, and the government, at least, has the responsibility to provide reliable, objective information. A .org site indicates a non-profit organization. Sometimes non-profit organizations are advocating for certain causes and can have strong opinions stated in the site. Other times, they may be more objective. It will depend on the organization. Even when having a particular point of view, some nonprofits do a more than adequate job backing up their claims (but not all of them). A .edu site is coming from a higher educational institution. Many educational sites will have research, instructors' syllabi and departments' projects, but they also can contain students' personal web pages as well. While domains will usually be a good indicator, sometimes some institutions do not follow the domains they are supposed to have. For example, a law firm that provides services to nonprofit organizations has the address: http://www.npdomain.org, but it's really a commercial ("for profit") enterprise. Sites from other countries will have a two letter extension. You would need to look at the rest of the URL to determine what type of institution it is from. |
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