EVALUATING WEB PAGES

Check out the domain name for clues.

.edu = An educational institution.

Is this a college? An official site? A student Webpage?

.com = Commercial site.

Who are these people? What are they selling?

.org = A non profit organization.

What is its purpose? What is its bias?

.net = A network.

Whose? Can you tell?

.gov = A national government.

Plain ".gov" means USA. Other countries also use .gov sometimes. For example ".gov.au" means Australian government.

Ask some other important questions.

1. What is the purpose of this web site? Is it providing you with news? Is it someone's personal web page?
   
   
2. Who is the author, editor, publisher? Is this a reliable source?
   
   
3. How accurate is the information?
   
   
4. How biased is the information?
   
   
5. How complete is the information?
   
   
6. How does the source compare with all other sources around (books, articles in periodicals, other items on the subject?)

[Based in part on Alexander and Tate, Widener University, and Grassian, UCLA; see below for links.]

Additional resources

• How to Critically Analyze Information Sources (Cornell University Library)
• Evaluate Web Pages (Jan Alexander and Marsha Ann Tate, Widener University)
• Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources (Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library)