• Overview
• Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages
• Resources for Locating Good Sites
• Other Critical Evaluation Guides
• Useful Links
• For More Information

It is always important to use care and discretion when choosing sources for your research. When using sources from the web in your research, it becomes even more important to evaluate what to use and what to discard.

Unlike articles published in an academic journal, there's no authority control or peer review on the web. Anyone can publish anything they choose on the web: truth, fiction or outright lies. Information in a book or article has gone through a fact-checking process and been approved by an editor or editorial board. No one checks most web pages for accuracy, requires authors to document their sources, or keeps them up-to-date in the face of changing knowledge. Some web pages are highly reliable sources of information, some are intentionally or unintentionally misleading, and some are simply wrong. How can you tell the difference?

(It's important to note here that when we talk about "web pages" in this guide, we mean information that's freely available online to anyone, often found via a Google search. Regular web pages are different from the online article databases or electronic journals that Emory's libraries subscribe to. Although you do access these library resources via a web interface, they are electronic reproductions of, or indexes to, printed journals and should be considered equivalent to printed academic journals as far as quality of information is concerned.)

When using internet sources, you will need to develop and apply critical thinking skills: a mixture of common sense, fact-checking and deductive reasoning. Treat information on the web as though a stranger were giving it to you: it's not necessarily wrong, but it might well be.

Unfortunately there is no hard and fast checklist of rules for telling whether a web page is a reliable source. There are, however, a number of points that are worth keeping in mind when weighing the evidence. As you evaluate pages, ask yourself questions about the page, its creator(s), and its contents.

Authority

• Can you easily identify the page's author? How reliable is this identification? Does s/he provide contact information, or is there just a name?
  Anonymous information is necessarily more suspect: if you don't know who wrote it, how do you know whether they know anything about the subject?
  
  
• With what institution or group is this person affiliated? In what capacity? Does the author/ publisher list his/her/its qualifications? Is this person/ group qualified to present this information?
  The answers to these questions can also inform Objectivity, below.
  
  
• Is this person solely responsible for the page?
  Multiple authors don't necessarily make for better content, but if more than one person is working on a site there may be more of a chance that there is someone checking for errors or misinformation.
  
  
• What is the domain of the site?
  The URL can sometimes suggest the authority of a site. For example, anyone can buy a .com, .org or .net address, so these tell you nothing about the page's ownership. However, only educational institutions can register a .edu address, so it's likely that anyone posting content on a .edu site has some affiliation with the school (whether as a freshman, a professor, or some other relationship is another question). Only the US government can register a .gov or .mil (military) address, so it's more likely that information on these sites come from an authoritative source.
  

Objectivity

• Why did the author(s) publish this page? Is there a stated purpose? If not, can you infer a purpose or bias? Is the site intended to be informative? entertaining? satirical? personal? commercial?
  Authors often don't bother to publish on the web unless they have some strong feeling about the subject. Keep an eye out for bias.
  
  
• Does the author distinguish between opinion and fact? Can you tell the difference?
  One good way to tell opinion from fact is whether the author can back up statements with citations. See also Accuracy below.
  
  
• How balanced is information presented?
  Presenting only one side of an argument doesn't necessarily make a page worthless to you, but be aware of how honest the author is about whether s/he advocates a particular point of view.
  
  
• Who is linked to the page?
  Google's advanced search "Links" feature (near the bottom of the advanced search page) can tell you what other sites link to the page you're evaluating. If highly respected or authoritative sites link to a page, that suggests that it may be a good source.
  

Accuracy

• Does the information presented agree with what you know? Does the information agree with other sources, especially print sources? Can you determine the reason for any differences?
  Try this simple Google search to determine a straightforward fact: "great wall of china" "miles long". Is the Great Wall 4000, 4500, 4600, 1864 or some other length? Obviously it's worth double-checking before you mention it in a paper.
  
  
• Are there misspellings, mis-identifications, or other blatant errors?
  Again, errors like this don't constitute an absolute red flag. But if the author can't be bothered to spell-check and otherwise polish the page, what does that imply about the research that went into it?
  
  
• Does the author provide sources or cite references? Is the information cited correctly? Does the author suggest other (non-web) resources?
  Citing sources tremendously helps the credibility of any research. It immediately answers the question of "How does the author know this?" as well as giving you the opportunity to double-check facts for yourself.
  

Scope

• Is the information comprehensive and detailed? What's missing? Are you aware of any omissions or gaps? How detailed and/or comprehensive do you need the information to be? Is there too much information, making it hard to find what you need?
  Incomplete information can leave important g
aps in your research. Too much information, or content that's written at too high a level for you to understand, can bury the information you need and be just as useless. Keep in mind what, and how much, you need to know.

Currency

• When was the site created? When was it last updated? Is the information of a time-sensitive nature?
  If the site is a biography of W. B. Yeats, it probably doesn't matter whether it was last updated this week or a year ago. If you're researching current events, it probably matters a great deal. Many sites include a "last updated" indicator somewhere on the page. Make sure the information is as up-to-date as you need.
  
  
• How current are any sources cited?
  If the site includes a bibliography, take a look at the dates. There may have been more recent scholarship published that supersedes the information on the site.
  

• Is the online version more current than the print version?
  Reference sources often have both online and print editions. Sometimes the online version is much more up-to-date, and sometimes it's got identical information (but may have useful features like a search interface that the print edition lacks).
  
  
• How up-to-date are the links (if any?) Are there broken links?
  If the site includes links, how current are those sources? Broken links can indicate that a site hasn't been updated in a while.
  

Style

• Is the information presented in a clear, reasonable manner? Is it accessible to you, and at a level appropriate and useful to your research?
  Substance is more important than style, but sometimes style makes a difference. As noted under Scope above, if the content is written in a way that makes it hard to follow, you might miss important information.
  
  
• Does the style matter? Does it prejudice your perception of the information?
  Pay attention to whether the way a site is presented influences how you perceive it. That is, a slick professional presentation may make it easier to overlook faults in the content, and a simple-looking page may contain perfectly useful information.
  

Rather than trusting in Google and blind luck to find authoritative, objective, accurate, current information, you can turn to sites which evaluate web sites -- the web equivalent of movie or book reviews:

Librarians Index to the Internet [LII]
Their motto: "Information You Can Trust." The Librarians' Index to the Internet (lii.org) is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 12,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries. Every site entered in the lii.org database is reviewed at least twice, and an active weeding program keeps it current.

The Internet Scout Report
The Scout Report is one of the Internet's longest-running weekly publications, offering a selection of new and newly discovered online resources of interest to researchers, educators, and anyone else with an interest in high-quality online material. The Report is available both on the web site, and in e-mail form via mailing list subscriptions. Back issues of the Scout Report, as well as past issues of the discontinued subject-specific Reports, are available on its back issues pages. The Scout Report Archives are a searchable and browseable collection of over seven years' worth of critical annotations of carefully selected Internet sites, mailing lists, and other online resources.

College and Research Library News Internet Resources Index
Each month C&RL News publishes a review of internet sites on a particular topic, ranging from Astronomy to Children's Literature to Genealogy, Mathematics, Photojournalism, and World Religions. Each review includes several dozen (or more) sites, with annotations. The topic index dates back to 1998 and includes more than 70 topics.

For more information about evaluating web pages and information you find on the web, you may want to look at these web sites:

Using the Web for Researching African American History (Raquel Cogell and Jana Lonberger, Emory University General Libraries)

The Web: Can It be Trusted? Evaluating Sites on the World Wide Web (Zach S. Henderson Library, Information Services Department, Georgia Southern University)

Evaluation of Information Sources (The World-Wide Web Virtual Library)
Links to several dozen sites that discuss general selection criteria for librarians who are selecting sites to include in an information resource guide, or informing users as to the qualities they should use in evaluating Internet information. Also includes a dozen sites that discuss selection criteria for specific sources or subjects.

"Thinking Critically About World Wide Web Resources" (Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library)

"Thinking Critically About Discipline-Based World Wide Web Resources" (Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library)

Bibliography on Evaluating Web Information (Virginia Tech Library)
Includes sample evaluation forms.

Site Selection Guidelines for Information Professionals (Candy Schwartz)

Practical Steps in Evaluating Internet Resources
A step by step approach to finding quality sites on the Internet aimed at the college freshman. Good solid advice.

Selection Criteria - How to Tell if You're Looking at a Great Site
Maintained by the American Library Association's ALSC Children and Technology Committee, this site lays out guidelines for evaluating K-12 web pages.

How to Cite Internet Sources

Current editions of most style manuals include information about how to cite online sources.

• Online! Citation Styles: Guidelines for citing internet sources in MLA, APA, Chicago and other styles.
• APA Style: Electronic References
• MLA Style Frequently Asked Questions: "How do I document sources from the Web in my works-cited list?"
• Google Directory: Citation Guides: Links to many more citation style guides.
• Citation Styles: A guide to citation styles by Betsey Patterson, Emory University General Libraries.

Plagiarism

Using the work of another scholar without proper citation, whether that work is available in print or online, is plagiarism, a violation of the Emory Honor Code. It is extremely easy for professors to discover work plagiarized from web sources -- they know how to use Google at least as well as you do, and there are many online tools available specifically to help educators detect plagiarized work.

The General Libraries periodically offer a workshop on Internet Critical Evaluation Skills. Schedule information is available on our workshops page.

Please contact us if you need help with any stage of your research. We can meet with you one-on-one, or help you by phone or e-mail.