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Judging
What You Find
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Because there is really no review process or regulation for publishing on the public Web, you will need to judge for yourself the quality of the material you find. While you can get some of these answers by viewing the URL and scanning quickly the web page or its home page, you will actually need to read and analyze the content of the page(s), themselves. Keep in mind these five areas of evaluation. |
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| Accuracy | Does the information presented seem accurate? Are the facts verifiable? |
| Authority | Who is the author? What expertise does he or she have on this topic? Who sponsors the site? Check the domain name to see if it is a university, business, organization, or an individual. |
| Objectivity | What is the stated purpose of the site? Check the "About..." link if there is one. What position or opinion is presented and does it seem biased? What kind of sites does this one link to? |
| Currency | On what date was the page created? Do you need more current information? Do links on the site still connect to their destination? |
| Coverage | How much information is the Web site really giving you? Is it relevant to research? Would you quote information from this site in a college research paper? |
| When evaluating web sites, you can use Chabot Library's Web Evaluation Checklist which asks you more questions. | |
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