Information on the Internet is not evaluated for accuracy or reliability!
Most search engines show you results based on popularity and advertising. Good information is available on the Internet, but it’s your responsibility to work through all the questions before citing the information in a college paper.
If you’re using information for personal reasons, the criteria might be convenience, friends’ recommendations, namebrands, or easy webpage design.
For college papers, however, the criteria are more extensive and take longer to evaluate. You should only site impeccable sources of information in a college paper.
The Bottom Line: Trustworthy websites are crystal-clear about who is responsible, what their credentials are, where the funding comes from, and why they put information on their site. They discuss topics in a reasonable way, give extensive information, cite exact sources, and qualify their claims.
Evaluate: Use the criteria below to evaluate information.
Verify: Don't trust the site to tell the full story about itself. Look up credentials of authors from a different site; find out about the company or think tank from newspaper or journal articles.
Triangulate: Find reliable second and third parties, NOT connected to the site or agency, which also use or recommend the site.
Use the original source: Track down the original source of the information to use in your paper.
Also, be sure you are evaluating the site, not just a web page. For instance, "Getting Vaccinated" is one page within a larger government site called Vaccines.gov, which is run by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Mission and Audience
How does the mission of website fit with information provided?
Audience for website: To whom is the information targeted? What does it assume about its audience?
Are the sponsors or money sources connected to the purpose of the information provided?
Ads and promotions: How are they placed? Why are they needed? How are they connected to the mission of site?
Credibility
What are the author’s credentials in this subject matter?
What makes the author an expert?
Internal credibility: How are the author and sponsor/ funding source related?
How authoritative is the source? How does the author support opinions (with facts, emotions, stories, etc.)? Is there an address and email to contact the author or sponsors?
External credibility: What other websites mention or link to this website? What sources does it cite and how credible are they?
How does it credit its sources? How does the website show where the information came from? How does it document its claims?
Content
Completeness: How comprehensive is the content? What new information did you learn from this source?
Accuracy: How factually accurate is the information? How comprehensive (does it include everything it should)? Can
you verify the accuracy of its information?
Updates: How recent is the information? How up-to-date does this information need to be in order to be helpful? When was the site last updated? Are links active?
Reasonableness: Where and how does the author or site present information that is fair and objective? If the author or site is biased, how does he/she present that bias—openly? Reasonably? Is the information exploitive or emotional?
Consistency: Does the information seem consistent with information you’ve learned on this subject from other
sources?
Design/navigability/access
Is the website organized for its audience?
Can non-members access information?
Does the design support the content focus of the website?
Are ads and sidebars distracting or helpful?
Does the website have the information it claims to have?
Most college professors do NOT want you to cite sources such as these in your paper. You might use them for background reading, finding keywords for using in databases, or for citation chasing.
Wikipedia--not reliable on many topics and too superficial for citing in a college paper.
Popular reading--magazine sites such as Men's Health, Slate, or Salon. Also anything on Ask.com, eHow.com, About,com, Associated Content
Blogs and Personal Websites--Gizmodo, Daily Beast, Dr. Phil McGraw, Oprah
Content Aggregators are not even considered sources: Reddit, Feedly