Evaluating+Web+Sites

There are millions of sites on the Internet, but not all of them will be good to use in your research. Learning how to tell which Web sites you should use for your research will help you do better in school. Here are a few important questions to help you decide if a site will be useful:

Anyone can make a Web site, so it is important to decide whether you can trust the site's author. A good site won't try to hide who created it, and the author's name will be easily found on the home page. Sites created by teachers, schools, or the government can all be good choices.
 * Who made the Web site?**

Examples:





Some Websites are created specifically for students and will usually clearly state this on their home page. These sites will probably be good to use in your research. Other sites are created for people who have studied the topic for a long time, and these sites will use words that someone who hasn't studied the topic as long might not understand.
 * Who was the Web site created for?**

Examples:





Some Web sites will clearly state why they were created. They might have been created to sell a product, support a cause, or educate about a topic. These Web sites might express an opinion and try to convince you to agree. Knowing a site's purpose and whether it fulfills that purpose will help you to decide if the Web site will be useful in your research.
 * Why was the Web site created?**

Examples:





Look for a date stamp on the Web site. This will tell you if the site is recent and has up-to-date information. If you use an out-of-date Web site, your work might have the wrong information. Another good way to tell if the Web site is old is to check if the links on the site work. People who keep their Web sites up-to-date check if their links still work and fix them, so if the links don't work, the site might be old.
 * When was the Web site created? When was it updated?**

The date stamps are often at the bottom of the page. Scroll all the way down.

Here is a worksheet to practice evaluating websites.



You will need to access our library OPAC:

http://library.istianjin.net (from school) OR [|http://library.istianin.net (from outside of IST)]

After you finish practicing with this worksheet, you may want to cut out the column with the evaluation questions and use those as a quick reference.