When you visit a web page how do you know the if information correct and valid?
An excellent reference and mini-workshop for Web Page Evaluation is Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask published by the UC Berkeley Library.
From the page:
In the general World Wide Web there are no editors (unlike most print publications) to proofread and “send it back” or “reject it” until it meets the standards of a publishing house’s reputation.
Most pages found in general search engines for the web are self-published or published by businesses small and large with motives to get you to buy something or believe a point of view. Even within university and library web sites, there can be many pages that the institution does not try to oversee.
The web needs to be free like that!! And you, if you want to use it for serious research, need to cultivate the habit of healthy skepticism, of questioning everything you find with critical thinking.
