evaluating websites: a guide for writers

Evaluating Web Sites: A Guide for Writers

In just a few years the web has become a vast storehouse of information, ideas, opinions, data, lies, and self-promotion. It's a resource that most writers can't afford to ignore; at the same time, it's an undifferentiated collection that readers must evaluate carefully. We need to distinguish between reliable and unreliable data, informed argument and unsupported opinion, unbiased research and self-serving advertisement.

Actually, the techniques for evaluating the authority and reliability of web sites are similar to those that should be applied to print materials. In fact, learning to be critical readers of the web can also help us become better readers of print.

The criteria on this page are designed to help you determine the appropriate uses to make of web resources. You can be confident about information written by an authority or endorsed by a professional organization . You can also use material from web sites that display a bias, so long as you acknowledge that bias. Even apparently unreliable pages have their uses, as in a discussion of proselytizing or advertising on the web, for example.

Criteria for Evaluation Web Resources

Subject: Is the subject discussed on the web site the same subject you are researching? How does it differ from your focus? Are there links to other sites on the subject?
Can you check the accuracy of the information or data somewhere else? Newspaper reporters customarily verify leads with a second source. You should do likewise.

Authority: Does the author of the web site have the education, expertise, or experience to be a trustworthy source or commentator on this subject? Authority can be established by a degree in the discipline, a record of teaching or research in the field, a job in a related area, or significant related experience. Of course many experts don't have formal credentials; they may have developed expertise on their own. And even non-experts (students writing course projexts, for example) can be authoritative sources if they base their work on a substantial number of reliable sources.

Author: Some web authors will identify themselves and their affiliation on all their web sites. They may also include a link to their home page, where you can examine their professional resume. Others "sign" their work in an HTML comment which does not appear on the web site, but can be seen by viewing the source. The alternative way to identify an author is to delete the file name (the last item in the URL, following the last /). This may take you to author's entry site.

Organizational Endorsement: Many useful web pages appear as part of organizational sites and reflect the work of that organization. In the case of a professional organization (such as the American Psychological Association or the National Council of Teachers of English), such endorsement provides powerful authority. Other organizations are primarily advocacy groups (the American Civil Liberties Union, the Republican Party) whose web pages will all reflect the particular positions of the group. Commercial sites exist, of course, in order to sell a product or a service. Material from any group's site may be useful, so long as you analyze the group's purposes and possible biases.

Purpose What is the author's (or organization's) purpose in publishing the web site? Who is the page written for? What is the intended audience supposed to do with the information? Does the purpose lead the author to slant his or her information, interpret data in a particular way, or omit anything? are there other possible interpretations of the data? Other possible conclusions?
Another way to examine purpose is to ask who benefits? What groups, individuals, political interests, or commercial interests stand to gain? Who is harmed?

Bias Examination of the subject, author, and purpose will lead to uncovering the particular biases of the web site. In spite of claims of academic objectivity, it is, in fact, impossible for authors, reseachers, or sponsoring organizations to avoid some kind of bias. At best, the author will attempt to be fair, either by admitting to his or her biases or by acknowledging other possible positions, interpretations, or conclusions. Your use of your web sources (and your print sources) will be strengthened by your analysis of the possible biases you observe.

Currency Is the page dated? Has it been revised or updated? Since the web is relatively new, almost all web pages have been written within the last five years. For most print sources, publication within the past five years would be considered "current." Since one of the advantages of the web is its ability to keep up to the minute, however, a five year old web page might well be out of date.